


Five Things that Never Happened to Chloe Decker

by legendarytobes



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: 3.26 Once Upon a Time, 5+1 Things, AU, Alternate Universe, Angst, Antichrist, Deal With the Devil, Deckerstar - Freeform, F/M, Fallen Angel Lucifer, NC-17, Newly Fallen Lucifer, Once Upon A Time AU, Pregnancy, Pregnant Chloe Decker, Whump, five things fic, nun Chloe, writer chloe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:34:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 65,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24498769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legendarytobes/pseuds/legendarytobes
Summary: Five things that never happened to Chloe Decker, a bit of a "Lucifer" elseworlds collection.
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 172
Kudos: 282





	1. Falling Star

**Chapter One - Falling Star**

_Based on a prompt at FH from Lassie_

Chloe sat on the balcony of her mother’s beach house. It was nearly three a.m., and she was tipsy. She didn’t usually drink that much as alcohol had a way of working right through her, but tonight the nice bottle of wine she’d liberated from her mom’s good stash was needed. She’d finally had the courage to call the lawyer she’d found and request papers be sent over. She hadn’t even shown them to Dan yet, but reading over them tonight helped her feel like she was making progress in her life, that she wasn’t just going to let the separation draw out forever and give him and honestly Trixie false hope that there was going to be reconciliation.

After he’d chosen to back everyone else in the precinct but _her_ over Palmetto, Chloe knew there could never be recovery for them.

Sighing, she poured herself a third---or was it a fourth---glass and toasted her new start in life. “Here’s to you Chloe Decker, a single mom and divorcee at thirty-four.”

Joy. Considering the station could barely stand her, and she was one more infraction away from being busted down to uni, well, Chloe’s life was rapidly becoming a flaming pile of crap. She sighed again and drained her merlot. And then she blinked.

_What the?_

A huge streak of light, like a comet her dad had shown her when they’d gone camping and star gazing when she was a kid streaked by, except it was too close, and it was so impossibly bright. Chloe almost dropped her glass in her shock as she sat up on the veranda. Then, she jumped to her feet as a concussion rocked the very ground beneath her.

Had an asteroid fallen?

Did some debris from a plane crash hit the beach?

It was late and a quiet stretch of beach, but she had to go check anyway. She was a cop and a first responder of course, and if there were any chance any one had been hurt by whatever had fallen from the sky, then she had to help them until she could get paramedics out there. Rushing into her apartment, Chloe grabbed her cell and her gun just in case and hurried to the beach below.

As she ran, she didn’t know what to expect, but a huge freaking crater less than a quarter of a mile from her mom’s balcony wasn’t it.

Neither was the being she found curled up in it.

And that was the most accurate word she could come up for him. _For it?_ As Chloe approached the edge of the crater, she gazed down through the cloud of dust and reconfirmed her assumption. The being before her looked like a man; honestly, he was tall, lanky but strong man who was completely freaking naked. But he couldn’t have been human, which was the dumbest thought, but he couldn’t have been because he’d both fallen from the sky _and_ was sitting up and stretching singed and slightly blackened wings behind him.

Wings so huge that they had to stretch out to fifteen feet on either side of his body.

Chloe forced her brain to keep functioning even as a big corner of it kept screaming at her that this wasn’t possible and an even tinier part was glad Dan had Trixie tonight because _somehow_ there was an angel (or possibly an alien) on the beach, and she needed to get it out of here.

At least contained, in case it was a danger to the public.

She took a deep breath and held up both hands flat towards him. “I…who are you?”

The angel stood and groaned as his wings shuddered. It took a moment, but he forced them tightly against his back. They were still huge, but they weren’t almost thirty feet of feathers end-to-end like that.

And, oh shit, there was an angel. On the beach. And she was trying to reason with it.

Chloe hadn’t ever really been a church goer. After marrying Dan, she always went for Christmas and Easter to set a good example for Trixie. However, the most she knew about angels was all that “hark!” and the angel coming to the Wise Men to point to Jesus’s birth at the kids’ Christmas Pageant every year. As far as she knew, they were the good guys, but glancing down at the imposing and okay so very naked angel below, she figured if he could survive falling literally to earth that he was also tough and strong enough to wreck her if he so chose.

Hopefully, he wouldn’t do that.

The angel took in a ragged breath and glanced over his surroundings before finally turning to regard her with wide brown eyes. “Who are you to talk to me, mortal?”

_Great, off to a promising start._

Chloe, in one of her dumber moves, pulled out her badge and held it up for him. “I’m Detective Chloe Decker of the LAPD, and I don’t know much about what’s going on, but I try and keep order and peace around here. Can you understand that much?”

The angel nodded and kept focusing on her, never blinking once. “I understand that, yes. I have come to this wretched hole before on Father’s missions. I’m not overly fond of you lot, but I know who you are.”

She blinked. Was the angel freaking British? What even was her life?

“I…thanks? Look, you’re an angel, right?”

The one before her snorted. “Of course, I am. I’m hardly a vulture, am I?”

Chloe decided that rolling her eyes before a divine being wasn’t a great idea, so she just kept herself from doing it. The Bible never said that angels were aggravating. “No, but you have to come with me, uh, please. I don’t think it’s safe if people come across you.”

“A human could hardly wound me.”

“For the humans, angel. I meant that I don’t want you to get spooked and hurt them.”

The angel held his chin up haughtily. “First, I am not just any angel. My name is Lucifer the Morningstar, and I’m the angel who lit the heavens on Father’s command.”

She blinked. “I…what?”

“Do you fancy the stars much because I _made_ them. It’s how I earned my current moniker.”

Chloe filed the rest of that away, that he was using a nickname---who knew angels had those either---but for now she could work with that. “Well, _Lucifer_ , I need you to come with me. It’s for everyone’s safety. Also, you’re like really naked.”

“I do not understand.”

She grumbled to herself and slid into the crater. Maybe if she just yanked on his arm, he’d get to moving. “I can’t deal with another cop coming by and trying to arrest you for indecent exposure or, you know, possibly calling the military. It’s an even toss up on that.”

“I do not fear your human law enforcement. I am a warrior of God…or I was…and an archangel. No human could hope to best me.” As she watched something golden and inhuman flashed in his eyes. “Are you grabbing my hand?”

“Good, you’ve mastered the obvious,” she bit back. “We’re going to my house. Can you get that far…I…your wings looked pretty singed, but it’s not a far walk.”

“Fine, I shall humor you, but only because I have little interest in dealing with other humans. It would prove far too tiresome.”

“Great, glad you can see reason.”

Lucifer laughed at that. “Believe me, Detective Chloe Decker, if I were reasonable, I wouldn’t be exiled here.”

**

“You need to put these on.”

Lucifer frowned at the stack of garments that the woman handed him. “I don’t understand. I am comfortable, albeit my wings do ache after my crash. I do not need vestments. After all, in the Silver City we do not require them. Robes are usually reserved for war or for coming to earth.”

“Well, you’re on earth now.” She said, shoving the grey and drab clothing toward her. “And on earth, we all wear clothes.”

Lucifer grumbled to himself. He’d been to earth enough on assignments over the years to know that varied based on where humans lived, the temperatures they tended to deal poorly with, and the beach, itself. They _barely_ wore clothing there at all. Still, the woman was rather adamant about all of it, and he was too tired and wounded to argue. Walking back even a small bit along the beach had wiped the last of his reserves, not that he’d had much after Rebellion and his trial.

Even less after Michael had tried to kick him from heaven altogether.

So, he grabbed the garments and slid them on.

Then, he shook his head in disapproval at the way the pants did not reach close to his ankles and the tightness of the shirt across his chest. “I do not approve.”

“I’m sorry, oh mighty angel, but all I had was some of Dan’s old sweats, and he’s smaller than you. I cannot deal with my existential crisis _and_ you naked at the same time, so here we are.”

“Who is this Daniel you speak of? Is he your mate?”

She choked on the water she’d been drinking beside him. “Okay, my brain is not even processing how you got a t-shirt over wings and now they’re _outside_ of the t-shirt.”

“It is too complicated for your simple, human mind and involves pocket dimension physics.”

Blue eyes narrowed back at him. “Okay, sorry I asked.” She shook her head. “Also, he’s my ex-husband…well, we’re still married, but I filed papers, and you’re not going to understand that.”

Lucifer grinned at her answer. “My father does not care for divorce. It’s against His rules.”

“Believe me, I’m aware.”

“Yet you break His commands anyway.”

She shrugged. “You haven’t met my husband. I’d defy God who is, apparently, an actual guy to get Dan out of my life as soon as possible.”

He quirked his head at her. “You do not care for my father?”

“Don’t flash fry me or anything, but I honestly just went to church because I thought my daughter Trixie should, and Dan’s a fairly lapsed Catholic or he was till we had our daughter. I don’t dislike or like Him. I just thought heaven and angels and all of it weren’t real.”

Lucifer nodded. “We very much are. Also, how old is your offspring?”

She frowned at him. “Excuse me?”

“The child? How old is she?”

“Seven, almost eight. I…why are you even here?” she asked. “I gather that angels don’t just crater into the ground since I’ve never heard that at church, and I’m kind of thinking it’s not in the Bible.”

“Have you not read Father’s words either?” This intrigued him. He figured all humans loved his father as much as the bulk of his siblings did. He’d spent so little time on earth before that, while he knew so very bitterly for a fact that humans had Free Will, Lucifer hadn’t known they’d used it to decide whether or not to even believe Father existed, let alone care about Him. “How curious.”

“I’m just not that religious. I mean, I guess now I should be?”

Lucifer shrugged. “Don’t be on my account. Father and I aren’t currently speaking.”

She sat back on the sofa and eyed him. “What does that mean?”

Lucifer sighed and wasn’t even sure what to say. The last few days were half a blur, even to him and his eidetic memory. He’d gathered a handful of siblings who understood his pain and complaints, who also wanted Free Will and the right to choose. They’d gone to Father’s throne and demanded to talk about new terms, to be allowed to be more like the humans (Sandaphalon was perhaps not charitable exactly in calling them “monkeys”). Fighting had erupted, at least one angel had died by Sandy’s hand, and then the loss and the trial and his brother---his _twin_ \---about to stab his side and Lucifer deciding to risk just falling to earth and starting his exile early.

All of that felt like a dream, but it was a waking nightmare, because he had never heard of any of his siblings being banished _and_ Fallen. Only he was so unfortunate, and Lucifer wasn’t even sure what his exile had in store for him. He might have hated most of the Silver City, but he still had a few brothers and sisters he loved. He had no interest to live amongst humans, either. He just…what was he going to do?

A soft hand was on his shoulder, and, for the first time, Lucifer noticed how lovely Chloe actually was. “Lucifer? Can you explain why you’re here to me? I don’t know if I can help you---”

“Oh, Detective Chloe Decker, you well and truly cannot.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve been expelled from Heaven. If you have broken Father’s rules, then I can assure you, I’ve broken more of them. I’ve Fallen.”

She blinked at him. “Wait, so are you a demon like the serpent in the Garden of Eden type demon?”

He rolled his eyes. “No, that’s one of my younger siblings, Crowley. He’s been problematic, but he wasn’t fully banished exactly, not like I’ve been. Father has decreed I shall never return to the Silver City, to my home. I don’t know quite what to make of that.” He shuddered then, as the throbbing in his wings grew worse. “Do you know anything of triage or battlefield medicine perhaps? My wings are hurting worse, and I don’t know if there’s anything a lowly human can do to help, but I would like if you could.”

She stood then and set her hands on her hips. It was adorable in a way, that she could be so indignant at an archangel, at part of the Demiurge no less, and not realize how truly outclassed she was at a cosmic scale. “First, I help people. It’s what I do, so if you need help, of course I’ll try. Second, though, I’m not some almighty angel, but it sounds like you just lost the ‘almighty’ part, Lucifer. So, maybe don’t insult how lowly humans are if you need help from one. It’s rude.”

He considered her. If he so _Willed_ it, she would stop breathing. He wouldn’t because there were some of Father’s rules he agreed with and killing humans was one of them. However, this detective had no idea what he could and couldn’t do, and it amused him, this unfettered bravery (and possibly stupidity) of hers.

“Very well, Detective Chloe Decker, I will offer you respect.”

“It’s just ‘Chloe.’”

“Huh?”

“You don’t need to call me by my whole title. My name is fine.”

“Like how you do not also say ‘the Morningstar?’”

She nodded. “Yeah, humans try to avoid saying a mouthful.”

Lucifer nodded. “Well, Chloe, I apologize for being rude. I do not understand humans or know much about them, but I do understand I’ve been uncooth.” He sighed and tried to keep the worry from his tone even as he offered her his painful truths. “I have no one else. My family will never speak to me again, not in communion or as support. I worry they will hunt me down here eventually to finish what Michael has started. I need any friend I can get, and I am glad I have you, Chloe.”

Her face seemed to grow pink, but he wasn’t sure if that was normal or not for humans, or if he should ask about that either. So, Lucifer ignored it. “My wings are rather cumbersome. Is there a place I can spread them out?”

She nodded. “My mom’s bedroom is pretty big. She’s into this whole minimalism thing so not much furniture and a king bed. Let’s see what we’ve got. I’ll grab the first aid kit.”

**

Chloe was really screwed.

She had helped treat wounds in the field of course, a bullet graze here or a knife wound there before the EMTs could arrive on scene. She got CPR and first aid certified every year as the force required, but she knew _nothing_ about angel wings or wings for that matter. Hell, until an hour ago, she didn’t even believe angels existed, and now one had unfurled his wings (somehow and what the fuck was a pocket dimension) before her.

They were more injured than she’d first realized. The wings were supposed to be white, she was pretty sure, but from about his hips down, they were black, and the feathers were almost charred toward his feet and legs. Even up by his shoulders where the feathers were still white and glowing---how were they _glowing_ \---the light seemed to dim bit by bit.

Curious, Chloe reached out to a portion of his wing by his shoulder and pulled back a hand coated with a luminous, sparkling substance.

It felt slick as blood between her fingers.

“Lucifer, I…some of your feathers are pretty burned.”

“I will heal. Angels always heal. I…it just hurts.”

She ruffled through the feathers by his shoulders and dug deeper, he squirmed under her ministrations and screamed once before grumbling to himself in a language that was hauntingly beautiful but clearly not English, and Chloe wondered if it was an angel-only thing. Her hand came to a gash in his shoulder blades that felt at least six inches wide and only God knew how deep. When she pulled her hand back, it was dripping with that shiny and, honestly, goopy liquid.

Frowning, she held her hand out for him. “I’m worried about your shoulders. You have a really deep wound there. If you were human, I think you’d need it cleaned and stitched, but I can’t stitch people up. I don’t know how. I…what is this?”

The angel, for the first time, regarded her with something that wasn’t full hauteur. “That’s my divinity.”

“What?”

“I…Chloe, you have to help me. The wound must be sealed up or even as strong as I am, I will bleed out my divinity, and I will perish.”

“I don’t…I’m _not_ a doctor.”

“Do you know any healers? I…please, Detective Chloe Decker, I’ve lost everything else, but even now I do not wish to die. Can you help me?”

She nodded, her mind reeling, even as she circled her one option. Hopping up, she nodded to her living room. “Stay still. I have a doctor friend. I’ll call her and see what she can do. I promised I’d help you, and I try and keep my promises, okay?”

He frowned at her and surprised her by being gentle with her. “Thank you. I’ve been rude.”

“Not exactly your most charming, I assume, but you’re really hurt. I’m sure you’re in a ton of pain.”

“It is not pleasant,” he conceded.

She shrugged. “Let me get Linda on the phone. Lucifer, just hold on. I will figure this out.”

Once Chloe shut the door, she took two huge, gasping breaths. Her mind was spinning out so fast. Angels were real, God was a thing, and a _Fallen_ one was in her mother’s bedroom bleeding to death. What the fuck was she supposed to do with that? But she’d made a promise, and of all things, she was still a police detective, and she knew how to work a scene better than anyone. Rushing to her own bedroom, Chloe rummaged for her cell and dialed her friend.

Linda answered on the third ring.

“Chloe! It’s almost four a.m. What’s wrong?”

She took in a deep breath. “I…look, this is going to sound crazy, but someone was injured on the beach outside of my mom’s house, you know, where I’m staying while the separation is dragging on. Anyway, he’s really badly hurt, and I need someone who can sew him up for me.”

“Why can’t he go to the hospital?”

She knew she couldn’t tell Linda what Lucifer was over the phone; there was no way the woman would believe her. However, she could pull in the I.O.U. she was owed. “Look, we’ve known each other since I was a teenager and had to see you cause of my dad’s death. I was the one who convinced you _not_ to take that dumbass talk show job. I…you always said it was the best gig you _never_ took. I just need one favor, Linda, and I promise when you see what’s going on, you’ll understand. Really I do. Please, for me?”

“Are you safe?”

“I am, but he’s hurt, and I’m scared for his sake. Get here as fast as you can. I honestly don’t know how long he’ll last.”

Linda’s voice was more awake on the other line. “I’m not that kind of doctor.”

“You went to medical school though, and you can still stitch things up, right?”

“I remember how, yeah.”

“Then you’re ahead of me. Please, I’ll not even just call it even, but we’ll _both_ owe you.”

“Who is we?”

“Lucifer and I, please.”

“I’m on my way.”

**

She was sitting on the balcony and looking out at the dark waves of the ocean. Linda had come, for a few moments seemed to blue screen of death at seeing the majesty of Lucifer’s wings, even injured as they were, and until he’d spoken in a deep, commanding voice to “Be Not Afraid,” she’d hardly moved. But that was hours ago. Now, Chloe was waiting with her heart pounding in her chest, hoping Linda could pull off a miracle of her own.

The door finally slid open, and Linda slipped out to see her.

“Can you explain what the hell is going on, Chloe?”

She shook her head. “An angel crashed a quarter of a mile from my house. He’s burned, and apparently you just sewed up a hole in his shoulders leaking literal divinity. You know as much as I do.”

Linda sat down next to her in a lounge chair and pulled a pack of cigarettes from her jeans pocket. Chloe would normally lecture her about how those things would kill her, but this was the kind of day where anything to get through it was needed.

“It’s all really real,” Linda said, voice quivering.

“Yeah, that’s how I feel.”

“No, I mean if there are demons and a Hell, then I know I’m going there,” Linda said, her voice quivering.

“I don’t know if that’s true. He hasn’t mentioned much about the underworld except a sibling who apparently tempted Eve and can actually turn into a snake.”

Linda was shaking a little. “You don’t know everything about me. I did something so horrible in med school, and I…it’s _all real_.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Linda shook her head. “I never want to talk about it.”

“You’re the best person I know. I can’t imagine you’re damned.”

“Yeah, but that’s because I hide my dark spots,” Linda replied.

“I…maybe you can talk to him later. See if he can help you figure out more about the whole system?”

Linda shivered again and took a long drag on her cigarette. “He scares me, you know. I can’t believe you’re not as affected. I mean, I took one look at the wings, and I was a gibbering mess till he ordered me not to be.”

Chloe frowned. “They’re pretty…well the non-flambeed parts, but I don’t know if I feel any special draw or power from them.”

She finished that cigarette in one final puff and brought a second to her lips. Linda lit it in record time, and its smoldering end was a bit of extra light in the early morning darkness. “Maybe it’s because you’re not damned.”

“I don’t think you are either. I mean, you had an archangel bleeding to death, and you were scared and confused but you still saved him. I…you’re a better person than you think you are, Linda.”

“I don’t think that’s true, but I wish it was,” her friend confided. “I don’t know if he’s capable of getting infections, but I’ll write some prescriptions for antibiotics and a list of what you need to wrap and change the bandages, to help keep the wound over his shoulders clean. I just…I need a few days, but I’ll be back to check up and eventually, when it’s time, take them out. But I can’t be here. You can call me whenever you need, but I can’t deal with this.”

“Linda---”

Her friend dropped the cigarette and stomped it out. “I’m too scared. I have more skeletons in my closet than I care to admit, and I don’t want Lucifer to see that, to let me know my judgment…at least not yet. I…I’ll be back in three days, Chlo. You be careful.”

With that, Linda hurried to the front door in record time.

**

Lucifer didn’t wake until the sun was setting. The pain of the last few days was too much, especially the leaking of the ichor from his wings. He hadn’t lost so much divinity that it would kill him, but it would take weeks, especially on the mortal plane, before he’d feel like himself again. However, he was finally awake, and his stomach was ravenous, another sign that his injuries were grave. Angels fed off their own divinity---their divine spark---most of the time. Food was enjoyable and plentiful in the Silver City, but it was not needed.

His stomach rumbling again, Lucifer stood and walked---more like shuffled---back into the main room. He found Chloe on the sofa with the Bible opened on her stomach but the rest of her deep in slumber. That again was his father’s fault, really. The Bible was rather boring, and Lucifer was beginning to suspect after so much frustration with Dear old Dad that it was filled with self-serving dreck.

How loving could his father be?

How could any father kick out his son? Ignore his children and make them have no choice but to serve him? Could leave Mum in tears night after night?

No, Lucifer didn’t regret his Rebellion, only that it had failed. His family deserved better than edicts from an absentee father. He was just unable to set things right, to make it all work.

He was dressed only in the so-called sweatpants of Chloe’s husband. His wings and shoulders were too sore to deal with the t-shirt and fazing them around it. Lucifer walked over to the sofa and picked up the Bible, then set it on the table before the sofa. Coughing politely, he waited for Chloe to rouse.

“Chloe? Are you awake?”

She opened one eye and regarded him. “Clearly, I wasn’t.”

“You do snore a bit like an Albanian field wench, long story in the fifteenth century and with a holy blessing; anyhoo, can I trouble you for some food.”

Chloe sat up slowly. “You’re a needy angel, did anyone ever tell you that?”

“You are fortunate to be in the august presence of one of the precious few archangels,” he replied, his voice low and booming.

Chloe chuckled. “Oh, is that it?”

Lucifer held the stern posture a few minutes more before offering her a genuine grin. “Perhaps, but I’d honestly take any nourishment you can offer me.”

“What do angels eat? Can I make you eggs?”

“I’m not a pet dog or anything of the like, I don’t have stomach issues. I can do eggs just fine. Would you like me to make toast?”

“You know how?” she asked, getting to her feet.

“I have had missions on earth over the last six thousand years. It has caused me, sometimes as loathe as I was to do it, to be embedded in human society. I have picked up a bit of cooking.”

Chloe nodded as she walked to the kitchen and pulled out butter, eggs, and a pan to prepare for stove. “The bread’s in that drawer off by the left, near the front door. You swear you won’t like make my toaster explode?”

“I would never do that. I’m an angel, not an imbecile.”

She chuckled at that. “I think the jury may be out on that.”

He flicked a few of his poor, singed primaries in response to that. “I’m quite capable of making toast. Please, Detective Chloe Decker, don’t mock me.”

“I enjoy it,” she continued setting the pan on the stove and melting the butter in it. He ignored her and grabbed the knife, buttered a few slices of bread himself, and set it in the toaster oven. He’d been to earth more than most of his siblings except the other archangels, Azrael, and Amenadiel. Honestly, Lucifer had picked some things up, even if, until now, he’d never liked humans. He was too jealous of what they’d been gifted to be more than efficient on a mission to visit them. Never had he thought to joke or be friendly with one. But he was finding he enjoyed Chloe’s company very much, that it was a balm currently to the pain of losing his family.

“Will that kind and lovely friend of yours, Dr. Martin, be joining us? I don’t think I was coherent enough to properly thank her for her efforts with me. Or well perhaps thank her in English at all.”

Chloe stilled before cracking the first egg into the pan. “She left, uh, patients to see.”

Lucifer paused as he studied the human before him. “You’re lying. Please respect that I never do. Even if news is bad, I prefer the truth rather than an obfuscation. I’ll _know_ the difference, and I suspect such subterfuge is beneath you, Detective Chloe Decker.”

She cracked the egg in her hands finally and let it fall to the pan with a sizzle. “Linda was nervous. She’s afraid she’ll go to Hell some day now that it’s real. I don’t know why or what she thinks she did in medical school that was so bad, but she’s spooked. She’ll be here to look over your wings and shoulders in a few days though.”

“Her reaction is typical. Why do you think my siblings have often told humans ‘Be Not Afraid?’ Why do you think I said the same thing to calm her as well?”

A second egg hit the pan, and Chloe grabbed that flippy thing that Lucifer couldn’t recall the true name for currently. “I don’t know. She seemed pretty shellshocked to see your wings, and they’re pretty, but they’re not like go catatonic pretty.”

“Technically they are. Most humans cannot handle the sight of true divinity. It overwhelms you lot.” He frowned as she flipped the eggs, making sure they were cooked on both sides evenly. “Actually, it doesn’t affect you, even now. How utterly odd.”

Chloe rumbled around the kitchen for a plate and flipped the first egg onto a plate. At the same time the toast dinged, and he went to get it out. In a few moments, he had the first plate readied and was waiting for the second egg to set his own serving with.

“I just don’t think your wings are awesome. I mean, they’re pretty, but I’m not going cuckoo for cocoa puffs over them.”

“I don’t understand?”

“Right, angel. I mean, I’m not going crazy over them.”

“You should. I’m not being immodest. Humans cannot deal with the divine. It’s antithetical to your natures. I…it’s just unusual. Then again, in the last three days I led a Rebellion that got me banished from heaven permanently, crashed to earth, leaked divinity, and have had to rely on the kindness of two humans to survive. Maybe nothing is normal currently.”

“Well, thanks. We lowly humans are capable of more sometimes,” she replied, finishing the eggs and moving the pan off the burner.

Lucifer reached around and worked hard with the flippy thing to prep the second plate. “I don’t mean it like that, like you’re nothing more than monkeys. I’ve siblings that think that way.”

“How kind of you.”

He set the plates at the table and smiled gratefully when Chloe pulled orange juice from the icebox and poured two generous glasses for both of them. Lucifer waited until she’d set out the drinks and then pulled her chair out for her. He wasn’t human, but he understood manners, at least when it suited him.

“Now, now, Detective Chloe Decker, I do not mean any disrespect. My siblings often are haughty bastards. I am jealous you lot have Free Will. I resent you get to be Dad’s favorites. I do not think you’re completely uninteresting or without your own merits. I just want parity. We were here first after all.”

“I suppose, as long as you don’t see us sitting down to dinner the same as like dining with a chimp.”

He shook his head and sat down as well. “I never would, Chloe. You’re actually rather good company, and you’ve been kinder than an exile like I am deserves. I’ll have to thank Dr. Martin when she returns. I didn’t mean for my presence to scare her so.”

“Can I ask a question?”

“I’m an open book. I never lie.”

“We’ll see,” she joked. “Why do you sound British? It’s not like you’re from there.”

“No, but we’ve had TV up there for the human souls who go to heaven since the 1950s. A lot of my siblings have learned much about human culture from television. We’ve all had a chance to model and choose our diction. I preferred British. It seemed to fit. I’ve a sister who sounds like Northern California and my twin, well, he did not go English.”

She wrinkled up her nose at him, and he found it adorable. Which was odd, as he’d never felt anything like that, like the warmth over his limbs and the tingling in his palms before near another being. Why was she so…well captivating…that was the word wasn’t it?

“You have a twin?”

“Yes, Michael, Sword of God, is my brother. It made him being the one to try kicking me from heaven especially painful, but he was always a Daddy’s boy, perhaps even more than the eldest, Amenadiel.”

“I…I’m sorry about your family. Mom and I sometimes fight, but we care about each other. I loved my dad so much, and it sucked when he died.”

“What was his name?”

“Why? Do you visit with the humans much in heaven?”

“No, not really, but I was curious. Perhaps---”

“John. I…did you ever meet John Decker up there?”

“No, but if he was anything like you, he must have been extraordinary. I’m sure he’s enjoying paradise as much as he can and waiting for you.”

“How would you know?”

“Because I’d wait for you,” Lucifer answered and found even to his surprise that it was the truth.

Chloe’s eyes grew wide, and she was about to say something, when there was a sharp rapping on her door, and she cursed lividly. “Oh man. It’s Dan, and I…with all the angel life and death, I forgot that it’s already Sunday, and he’s returning Trixie.” She eyed his wings. “Can you put them away at all?”

“No. They ache so, but I can retire to the balcony, would that suffice?”

She started clearing their plates. “Thank you, Lucifer.”

“As you wish.”

**

“Holy cow!”

Lucifer eyed the small human who had opened the door to the veranda and was regarding him with wide, dark brown eyes.

His wings twitched, and although he did not expand them out to their full span, he spread them enough that the small offspring spoke again:

“You’re an angel!”

Lucifer knelt and smiled for her. Luckily and for whatever reason, like her mother, she was not affected adversely by his appearance. How odd that Chloe Decker and her spawn could not or at least didn’t brook to divinity as other humans did. So strange.

“I am, child.”

Fingers were already in his wings before he could react. He struggled to keep his feathers flat and soft, the reach was so unexpected, and the automatic instinct was to draw his primaries into blades for protection. Angels knew never to preen each other without permission, but she was not an angel, just a human child, and he wished her no harm.

Blessed were the meek and the children after all.

That much Lucifer could agree with. Trixie was an innocent in all of this.

Still, if he were staying with Detective Chloe Decker for long, he’d have to teach her the ins and outs of permission to touch wings. One couldn’t just grab them as if he were a house cat! Perish the thought.

“You’re soft.”

He sat up a little straight in his crouch. “Thank you. My feathers are a mess lately; I burned them a little when I fell to earth. They’re usually better.”

The girl’s eyes were so wide then, that he was afraid they were going to fall out of her head. “Are you staying here? Ooh, did you hear my prayers?”

“I don’t understand.”

“I…I pray a lot because my abuela says that the angels always hear and can help us.”

Lucifer kept smiling at her. He hoped she didn’t dare ask him if that were true because it wasn’t, and he never lied, but he had no desire to wound a child so. “And you prayed for an angel of your own?”

“Yuppp! My mom and dad are always fighting. It’s why I have two houses now, and I wanted to ask for them to get back together. I…can you help?”

Oh, this poor child. She had no idea how angels actually worked, did she? His siblings and Father were far too busy with the fabric of the universe and keeping everything running to care or even notice about the worries of one, small human spawn.

He couldn’t even promise he could help her with her problems because he wasn’t sure about Chloe’s relationship with her mate, although she’d been very emphatic they were separated. Besides, a huge part of him didn’t want to help. He was…not sure. But thinking of Chloe not being technically available for a mate in the future made it feel like he had a heavy force pressing on his chest.

How odd as well.

“Can you help?” the child repeated, her chin wobbling a little.

“I can be your friend, offspring. Perhaps your parents will reconcile, or perhaps they will not.” He suspected eventually Mum and Dad would part. He didn’t see his own parents getting back together fully, being as lovely and beautiful as they had with each other when he’d been but a fledgling. Even if he wanted to help, Lucifer had no idea how parents got back together. “My mum and dad are fighting too. It’s why I’m here, to be honest. I’ve been kicked out of my home.” Lucifer reached out and stroked the girl’s hair back from her face. “I am short of friends myself. I cannot fix your home, but I can spend time with you. Would you like that?”

“WOULD I? That’s so aweosome! Can you take me flying?”

Lucifer rubbed at his sensitive ears. Perhaps there were more dangers inherent in hanging with human spawn than he anticipated. “My wings are burned currently. I can’t even take _me_ flying. However, if your mother allows it, and I am still here once I heal, I would be honored to take any child of Detective Chloe Decker up in the air. Let us hope my wings heal sooner rather than later.”

She moved from stroking his feathers---and they would have to go over the rules, he wasn’t a puppy either---before taking his hand. “There’s another door into my grandma’s room out here. We can watch Netflix until Mommy and Daddy are done fighting. They do it _a lot_ , and it takes forever.”

He nodded and his heart hurt for the child before him. It was hard enough at his immortal age to see his mum and dad have a row. How could a small human offspring weather that? Even this tiny being was stronger than he would have surmised, at least emotionally.

“Then we can watch whatever you like. I…what is your name?”

“Beatrice, but everyone calls me ‘Trixie.’”

“Oh, yes, your mother mentioned your name a few times. I think I blocked it out.” He took her hand in his and let her lead him to the other balcony door. “I’m Lucifer, but if you let me call you ‘Beatrice,’ you can call me whatever you please.”

“Cool, Luci! Have you ever seen _Frozen_?”

**

Explaining that she’d had papers drawn up to Dan went about as nuclear as she’d expected. Somehow, despite everything with Palmetto, her husband still assumed that somehow she was going to forgive him as if nothing had ever happened, as if he hadn’t humiliated her and made her feel so small by taking Malcolm Graham’s family’s side in this, by not stopping the other cops from harassing her. They’d been partners, but that was irrevocably broken.

Dan was too dense to even get that.

It had devolved into one of their more epic fights and almost three hours later---God, the divorce process was going to suck and be full of these arguments---she finally was free. At least the fight was done once Dan had gotten a few things through his head and taken the papers with him. Sighing and remembering she had a seven-year-old _and_ an injured angel to take care of, Chloe hurried to Trixie’s room.

But her daughter wasn’t there.

Worried, she bolted for the veranda, and found Lucifer missing as well.

_He has nowhere to go and he’s hurt. He wouldn’t steal Trixie, would he?_

She rushed to her mom’s room, to check the last big space in the house before she started diving into the bathrooms. It was then that she found the weirdest and oddly cutest thing she’d ever seen in her life. Her daughter was sitting on Lucifer’s lap, and the angel had half spread out his wings, enveloping her daughter a bit in his lightly glowing yet still singed feathers.

_Frozen_ was blaring on her mother’s TV, and she knew the songs by heart being a parent and because Disney was addictively evil.

But she’d never seen an honest-to-God Angel of the Lord rocking back and forth with her child and belting out a surprisingly good _Let It Go_ rendition. In fact, as Chloe watched the two sing together---well Trixie _tried_ \---she couldn’t help but smile. Things had been so strained around here lately, and she worried her daughter wasn’t getting enough good quality time with Dan. It was sweet to see her bonding with a different role model.

Well, not that Fallen angel probably counted.

When the song was done, she nodded toward Trixie. “Monkey, can you stop the movie?”

Her daughter nodded and was practically bouncing in Lucifer’s lap. “Mommy! You didn’t tell me you brought home an angel. Can we keep him? I’ll take care of him, and you won’t even know.”

“I am still _not_ a pet, child,” Lucifer chided, but some of his hauteur with her was diminished with Trixie. In fact, he was smiling fondly down at her. “However, I have to stay here at least till my wings are healed, so the next week for sure.”

“Can we watch _Lilo and Stitch_ tomorrow then? It’s really funny and has Elvis songs and you’ll like it a lot; I can tell.”

Lucifer nodded and pulled his wings slowly to his back. It must have cost him to let them curl up around Trix, injured as he was. “I would enjoy that very much, Beatrice.”

Chloe nodded at them both. “It’s late, Monkey, and you need to go start the bath. I’ll be upstairs to help, okay?”

“But Mommmm!”

Lucifer nodded and gestured to the door. “I’ll only watch the film with you if you listen to your mum tonight. She’s rather knackered from helping me, and I want her to have an easier night or as easy as it can be with your dad off now. Can you get ready for bed, spawn?”

“Will you read me a story?”

Lucifer shook his head. “I could tell you something short, but I don’t read English. That’s Amenadiel’s scholarly bent. I can speak anything, so I never bothered much with reading human languages.”

Trixie, who had loved being read to since she was tiny, looked appalled. “I’ll help you! We can start with Clifford tomorrow or Curious George. You’ll be reading in no time!”

“I think I’d like that. Now get, offspring. I’m rather shattered too.”

Trixie hopped off the bed and giggled. “You talk funny.”

“I do at that, child, now get going and I’ll tell you how I lit the stars.”

“Awesome!”

Chloe tried to keep a stern face as her daughter passed. “Now, get ready for bed, you promised. I’ll be up soon to help with your bath, okay? Just get the water poured, sweetie.”

Her daughter nodded and was gone.

She eyed Lucifer. “Do angels spend much time with children?”

“Some do. I don’t usually. It’s not my place; it’s usually for cherubim. Children are frankly beneath my rank, but she’s pleasant and very infectiously energetic. I could not refuse her.”

“I can tell. You survived _Frozen_ , and since Dan and I were fighting a while, it must have been twice.”

“I like the movie. This Mickey Mouse makes good cinema.”

Chloe chuckled. “Oh, Mickey’s not the…never mind.”

Lucifer stood and came to a stop so near to her that she could feel the heat rolling off his body, was intimately aware of how close to her he truly was. How enticing the planes of his stomach and broadness of his shoulders were.

“She’s very determined, like her mother. I can see where that familial spark was inherited.” He flicked his burnt feathers a bit, which was still so surreal. “Also, she isn’t affected by my divinity either. How unusual you Deckers are.”

“I…yeah…” Chloe said, unsure of how to deal with higher thought. “You sing really well.”

Lucifer sighed and his wings drooped. For the first time since she’d met him, he seemed truly sad, as if for all his anger there were still things that he’d miss about heaven now that he could never go back. Don’t get her wrong. Lucifer was clearly pissed with his father…with _God_.

But he missed his home too.

“I have been the lead for the heavenly choir since the Silver City came to be. At least till the last week when everything went to Hell with the Rebellion and Father.” He sighed and his voice waivered a little as he spoke again. “Castiel will finally swoop in and claim the title. He has half my talent, but he’s been angling for the role since before Rome fell. The pillock.”

Chloe shook her head. Nothing in the last 24 hours made any damn sense, and now an archangel was lamenting to her how he was no longer the choirmaster of heaven. It was so nuts that she secretly hoped she hadn’t fully cracked.

“It was sweet. Thank you for sitting with her.”

He nodded. “I understand when parents fight. I…all I wanted was to speak with Father, to argue for Free Will and for Him to be around more. Mother’s so upset and cold since humans came along, and nothing’s the way it should be. I don’t even know how it got to this and---”

She was about to say something when there was a loud bang and Trixie screamed from the kitchen. Chloe didn’t waste any time as she ran to the room and found her daughter with a glass of shattered milk at her feet and three rejects from the Renaissance festival in her home and standing in front of the exploded remains of her mom’s front door.

“What?” she shouted even as she hurried to Trixie and scooped her child up in her arms.

Lucifer rushed into the room too, flared his wings out fully, despite their state, and barked a short order to her. “Get behind me, Detective Chloe Decker.”

The tallest of the intruders who looked just like Lucifer except for slightly longer and even more unruly dark hair just shook his head. “Samael, we would never hurt humans. That is truly beneath us.”

Beside him, the smallest angel, a woman with dark hair and a bow and arrow clutched in one hand, let out a disappointed groan. Maybe Michael, Sword of God and apparently _identical_ twin of Lucifer or Samael or whoever, wasn’t here to hurt humans, but the female angel had been hoping for it. _Clearly_.

“Remy,” Lucifer warned, his voice booming deeply. “If you touch either Chloe or her child, I will eviscerate you. I’m Fallen, after all. I have precious little left to lose.”

The black angel with the bald head brought out a sword and brandished it toward Lucifer. “Samael, you presume too much.”

“Amenadiel, keep your protégé on a leash. If she can’t keep her bloodlust calm around a human child for even a few moments, then she isn’t ready to be on earth,” Lucifer countered.

“ **Enough**!” Michael commanded, and the walls shook as if it were an earthquake in the area.

Trixie screamed, and Chloe held her daughter even closer to her.

“Brother,” Michael continued.

Vaguely, Chloe registered that Lucifer’s twin had chosen to speak more like an east coaster, maybe New York a little. Angels were the weirdest, and if that bitch of a girl angel got her way, apparently not all goodness and light either.

Lucifer’s eyes shone gold as they first had with her. “Michael, was trying to stab me and kick me from the Silver City not sufficient? You best me in battle, you beat me at the trial, and I merely leapt to my exile before you sent me down. Can I not be shunned in peace?”

Remy shook her head. “You’re in no position to demand anything, Traitor.”

“Oh Remy, I have not missed you, and I doubt I ever shall,” Lucifer snapped.

“Be silent, Remiel,” Michael said before looking back at Amenadiel. “Brother, do rein your mentee, or I shall do it for you.”

“As you wish,” Amenadiel replied, sheathing his sword and striding next to her, looming just enough that Remy grew silent.

“You have no authority here. The human plane is Father’s creation, but angels have no dominion. It’s why I was exiled here at all,” Lucifer continued.

Michael nodded, “That is true, but you have missed the final part of your sentence, what Father willed be done.”

“Oh, Father and his endless edicts. Even tossed aside, I’m still to live by them?” Lucifer asked.

Michael offered Lucifer a smile, and it was a cold, feral look that terrified Chloe to her core. “Father has not let your service slide, Samael. You are not to be free. Why ever would you be when you _defied_ him, when Sandy killed two of our siblings in the melee you started?”

“I didn’t kill! I would never!” He glared at Remiel. “That’s more than some of us can say about bloodlust.”

“Go to Hell, Samael. Crowley and Sandy could use the company,” the girl angel spat.

“No, I don’t think I will, sister,” Lucifer said, turning his gaze back to Chloe and Trixie. “Let them go, Michael. You’ve no quarrel with the humans.”

“I do not, but I want them here to bear witness,” his twin said.

“To what?” Lucifer’s tone was as formal and reserved as the others, but she could see the tension in his shoulders from where he stood, had noticed the way the tips of his longest feathers were flicking back and forth at a rapid pace.

He was as scared as she was.

“To Father’s full punishment,” Amenadiel filled in smugly.

Michael nodded. “You, Samael, _Poison of God_ , are to be his punisher. From now on, you will be posted on earth to find the humans who deserve to be damned, to give them a _preview_ of what is to come, and to mark them for when they pass to the realm of the Lilim.”

“I’m done with Him. He can enforce His own bloody, endless rules.”

“No, He’s deemed it so,” his twin said.

Before Chloe could even perceive it, everything had changed. In a blur of motion, both angels had surged forward, and Remy and Amenadiel had each yanked onto one of Lucifer’s injured wings. The pain must have been horrible because Lucifer let out a scream of agony that curdled Chloe’s blood, and left Trixie crying into her chest.

“Stop please!” Chloe called out. “He’s already exiled and injured, what more can you do to him? Please, I’m a cop here. I’ll look after him. If his sentence is being on earth, then I’ll be responsible for him as long as I can. I…just don’t hurt him!”

Michael regarded her coldly even as his eyes grew bright with the same inhuman golden light that she’d seen in Lucifer’s. “This is beyond your concern and comprehension, mortal. You are only here to bear witness to Father’s decree on this plane. That is _all_. Samael Rebelled, and his punishment is his own. He has reaped the whirlwind now.”

Lucifer struggled against his siblings and something horrible crunched in his wings, something that made Chloe’s stomach roil in solidarity with the pain he must have felt.

“Leave them alone!” Lucifer shouted.

“I said I have no quarrel with your pet mortals, Brother,” Michael teased. And he held up his palm, glowing even more brightly than his eyes. “Now, pardon me, Samael, but this is going to hurt.”

Then Lucifer started bucking and moving harder against his siblings, even as his wings crunched further. Chloe tried to rush forward to help him, but Amenadiel flapped his own wings, and the wind he kicked up sent her falling back on her ass. She struggled up with Trixie still curled in her arms. Then, she eased behind the sofa and hid Trixie there and begged her not to move. Surging to her feet, Chloe had no idea what she could do, but she ran forward anyway.

But it was too late.

Before her, Michael laid his hand on Lucifer’s face, and then her friend screamed.

Then, the Fallen angel _burned_.

**

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed since his siblings had hunted him down. Days? Weeks? Maybe even months? What Lucifer knew was the pain of his wounds, the way his wings ached and oozed and felt torn in ways he’d never imagined, then the more horrifying moment when he realized he could _no longer feel them_ at all. Every day it seemed Dr. Martin came by to treat his wounds, to tend to his wings until he no longer felt them---either their heft between his shoulders or the breeze of the feathers when he tried to flick them or flap the wings altogether.

Linda proved to be kind, even if she was jittery at first and somehow believed she was going to Hell. He hated that she felt that way. But he hardly had any pull in the soul department anymore, did he?

But Linda talked. She was quite the chatterbox, and he found himself listening and answering her with slurred words whenever he drifted into consciousness enough to bear through the changes of bandages on his wings. Yes, the changing of his wound dressings. He thought she was doing that too even if he no longer felt _them,_ felt his wings being treated. The good doctor also tended to his face. Dear Dad, his twin had touched his face, and it had burned with the power of a hundred suns, laced with the fire of literal creation and the Demiurge turned against him.

It hurt to breathe.

And through all of this, he would tell Linda what he could to help him concentrate on history and creation and the universe instead of the pain of his re-dressings. When it grew too hard with the bandage changes---and it always did---then she talked instead, telling him of her saucy history as something called a phone sex operator among other things.

As he healed, the child sat with him too. She’d curl up at his side in bed, and together in what he thought was the afternoons (the sun seemed low in the sky out the window at least) they’d sit, and she’d play him all the cinema Mickey Mouse had to offer. He was too sore to sing, but he humored the urchin as she did so. And she wasn’t wrong. When he was conscious enough to care, he asked for _Lilo and Stitch._ He liked that one, where the monster no one wanted got a home.

He liked that one a lot.

Chloe sat with him all night or what he thought was night. She had moved in a small portable cot in what little space was available in her mother’s room and tended to whatever needs he had, brought him food and water---and Dear Dad was he always thirsty, as if his throat was permanently parched. The detective held his hand, and promised him she’d look after him, that she appreciated him trying to save her and her daughter from his siblings, that she felt _awful_ for what it cost him.

When he was awake enough, Lucifer promised her that it wasn’t her fault. His asshole siblings were God’s most loyal and most powerful hunting squad. They’d have found him regardless, had been sent because Dear old Dad didn’t think his suffering was ever enough, not even shoved to earth with no home to speak of.

It was awful agony, but he had his humans to watch after him, and it was more than he would have assumed a month? Two months? A week ago? Whenever he had first leapt to earth in a futile attempt to stop the full extent of Father’s verdicts.

Finally, he felt strong enough to sit up in bed, and on whatever day it was, Dr. Martin removed the heavy wrapping of gauze from his back and the yards of bandages from his throbbing, pained face.

She startled when she did it but had been a doctor long enough that Linda recovered quickly. Lucifer might not have noticed her flinch all if he weren’t blessed with Celestial perception.

“Hello, Lucifer, or do you prefer ‘Samael?’ Chloe told me it was what the other angels called you.”

“I prefer my nickname. It’s one of hope, and my mum and favorite siblings call… _called_ me that. I am no longer Father’s poison. I refuse to be.”

The good doctor nodded, and it finally struck him how small she was. How foolish it must be for a being almost as old as time itself to try and rely on a tiny speck of a human for safety. “That’s good. I don’t know exactly what Michael did to you, but you’ve been healing for three months. I…you’ve been so out of it, but your vitals are stronger today.”

He finally noticed the beeping beside him and turned to see the machines on the far side of the bed. “Where did all the hospital machinery come from?”

“I said I was going to hell. Is it that big a surprise I know how to pilfer things too, Lucifer,” she said, her voice hollow. “Your healing took a while, but I have to be honest with you. First, I’m actually a psychiatrist, so triage is the best I’ve been able to do with you. Second, I’m not an ornithologist---”

“A what?”

“Sorry if this is offensive, but I don’t deal with birds.”

“I’m not a condor or a buzzard, doctor.”

“Or a turkey,” she added, cracking a small smile at him.

He breathed and even that hurt. “You’re cheeky, doctor, and I think I like you.”

“Maybe, but maybe you won’t when I explain what happened. I…I couldn’t save them, but I don’t know if even I could have. Whatever Michael did, he was clearly bringing down God’s wrath on you.”

“Familiar with that,” Lucifer coughed. “I…save _them_?”

Linda nodded and sighed. “Lucifer, you’ve lost your wings. I tried, but after the first month, they were so burned that they rotted off. I’m truly sorry. I did everything I could, but I couldn’t stop that.”

“It can’t be,” he said, reaching behind his back to feel for them, but he came back with nothing. Terrified, he forced himself to close his eyes and reach out to the pocket dimension where he stored them. For the first time in eons, he felt _nothing_. “What?”

She frowned kindly up at him. “I’m terribly sorry, Lucifer. You can be as mad at me as you want. I’m only human, and I did what I could, but I don’t think any human medicine could have saved your wings. I…a few of the feathers did survive, the big long ones?”

“Primaries,” he breathed, barely able to speak.

Not his wings. They were what made an angel. They were _him_. Except he was Fallen wasn’t he? Now he was hardly a Celestial at all, and truly that had to be Father’s point.

“Yes, I saved what I could. I don’t know why, but I thought it might help you with the grieving process if you have those feathers that are left as a touchstone. I can’t imagine how painful this is for you. I know for humans, the loss of limbs---”

“They’re my divinity or a huge part of it,” he choked out.

The power of the Demiurge had flowed through them too, but clearly Father had taken that back from him, had made him lesser than even the young Host.

“I’m so sorry, and I wish I could have done better.”

“I’m alive,” he offered her. “For whatever it’s worth, I survived.” Lucifer shook his head and gave a bitter laugh. “Then again, if I’m to be Father’s faithful lap dog, then I suppose He _Willed_ that I stay alive.”

“I have to tell you one other thing, and it’s even harder.”

“I’ve lost my wings, Dr. Martin. You’re mortal and can’t possibly understand what it is to lose that big a part of my angelic nature, what it is to be unable to fly.”

“I guess not, but I…your brother burned you very badly. I can’t tell you why it only focused on your head and wings, but I suppose that’s whatever Celestial magic or power or God’s will for that. You’d know more about the _how_ , but I can tell you what happened. For the first month, I was badly worried about infection, but you don’t seem capable of getting that, at least. I… the skin’s healed up far better than human skin ever would. But it’s…perhaps it’s best to take recovery slowly, we can talk about all the injuries bit by bit. I…you have all the time you need to adjust to it.”

He reached up and touched his face, immediately recoiling at the rough, scarred flesh there, even as he hissed at the pain that came from touching it at all. “I…”

And in all his thoughts, the first thing that came to him tumbled from his lips. “Has Chloe seen this?”

Linda smiled kindly at him. “She’s helped me change your bandages for twelve weeks, so of course she has. You probably underestimate us both. I still had some rotations in the ER and other places in med school, and Chloe’s a cop in one of the biggest cities on the planet.” She patted his hand. “We’ve seen far worse, Lucifer. It’s okay.”

“It’s hardly that. I…I asked Father for Free Will, and He made me a monster.”

“No, your father, and I can’t believe I’m saying this about God, but he’s abusive in ways I’ve rarely seen. To make his own children----your twin brother no less---punish each other…it’s barbaric. Lucifer, asking for control over your own life isn’t wrong. It never was.”

He gestured to himself, and although he was curious and terrified to see exactly what Michael had done to him, he didn’t dare ask the good doctor for a mirror. Lucifer felt like he’d vomit if he saw. He might, once he felt better, be able to work up at least a glamor to make his face palatable superficially to humans again, but he’d need far more energy for that.

But his wings…there was _nothing_ he could do but accept they were gone forever.

“It must have been wrong, or He wouldn’t have done this to me.”

“Lucifer, do you know what a psychiatrist actually does?” Dr. Martin asked.

“No? I assumed you didn’t do triage, but I wasn’t sure what kind of doctor it did make you.”

“An emotional one. I help humans work through trauma by talking about it. I can prescribe medication too, but I doubt that works on angels.”

“It won’t.”

“But there are other types of healing besides one’s body. We can start talking a bit if you allow it about your childhood and your family. You’re not in the wrong here, and you have a lot to process about so much abuse that I can’t even fathom, but I’d like to try.”

He smiled at her, despite the ache in his soul, and for the first time since Michael had barged into the detective’s home, he felt that his world wasn’t quite over. “You’re better than you think you are, Linda Martin. I can tell that much.”

“Well, we’ll get to my sins later,” she confessed.

“Has the spawn seen me?”

“No, not without bandages. I know you’ve been very out of it, but she’s eight, and we didn’t think she’d quite understand. I’m sure for a bit it might be easier if you covered it when she visited you, but she’s been eager to see you today, since she knew you were probably going to actually be with it.” The doctor reached into her medical bag and pulled out three colorful pieces of construction paper. “She drew you all these. I’m not sure exactly what they are?”

He took them and looked them over and smiled more broadly. “They’re all scenes from _Lilo and Stitch_. It’s our favorite bit of cinema. Have you seen it?”

“I don’t have children, so I haven’t done Disney in decades.”

“It’s brilliant, actually.”

“I just thought they were blue bunnies with too many legs.”  
  


“I…no, it’s not,” he replied. “Well, I hope to see the child soon.”

“Chloe’d like to say hi.”

He gestured to the fresh bandages by the far side of his bed. “Should you re-wrap me?”

“The skin’s not oozing, and you clearly won’t get infected. You’re actually healed there, as much as I think you can be, and please forgive the limits of human medical knowledge.”

“Father gets what He wants always. So, if this is His _Will_ , I am as I am.”

“That’s Zen.”

“No, it’s the bitterest of experience speaking,” Lucifer replied, his heart beating hard against his chest. “There is never any changing with Father. He gets what He wants, _always_ , and His plans are never rerouted. I tried to reason with Him just once and look what it got me.”

She shivered beside him. “I can see that.”

He offered her a sad smile. “I know I must be quite hideous and---”

“No,” she said, patting his cheek and surprising him utterly. “I’m upset because God’s clearly a few tacos short of a combination platter.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“In clinical terms, your father is a sadist, and that’s the best of what I can tell about him. It’s not reassuring for just a mortal to know that. I…you’ll be fine with Chloe. She’s been so worried.”

“She’s been a rock,” he corrected. “I’ve noticed her as I’ve drifted awake and then into sleep again at night. She’s always here when she can be.”

“She cares about you. We all do. I…I suppose I have a wayward angel to keep track of, that we all do.”

“Well, doctor,” Lucifer said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. “Do send Detective Chloe Decker in. I’d like to thank her for helping me. She was so very brave. I’ve rarely seen a human face down the strongest of God’s angels, let alone order him around. She couldn’t have of course, but she did try.”

Linda nodded. “That’s Chloe for you. She saved me or at least my career and sense of self once, kept me from making a horrible mistake. I’ll send her right in, and next week, please, we’ll start with the therapy. I think it can help some. I…Lucifer, this isn’t your fault, and you have to believe me that it’s not what you _deserve_.”

He offered her his best smile, but it felt like it would crack his face in two. “I wish I could believe that, doctor, truly I do.”

**

Chloe wanted to cry when she saw Lucifer in the bed. He was trying hard to sit up and stay calm and collected, but she noticed the way his shoulders slumped when she entered, the nervous fiddling with his onyx ring, even the way his eyes that now glowed crimson when once they had been gold dimmed in her presence.

He thought she’d be scared of him or disgusted.

When she was royally pissed for his sake and wished she could punch all the angels and his father in the face for him. Not that such a thing were possible.

“Hello, Detective Chloe Decker,” he said, his lilt lower and quavering.

She smiled and forced her threatening tears away. He didn’t need that now. Instead of going to her cot, as she had so many times over the months, she slid into place beside him. “I…it doesn’t hurt, does it?”

“No, not my back, not any longer. The skin on my face is rather sore though, so it’s not…please don’t touch the burns there, Chloe.”

She nodded and curled up under his arm and against his side. “I hate your family.”

“I never did, not until today. I was frustrated with them but now I hate both Father and Michael for this, and it twists my gut in the worst of ways, I confess that. I don’t understand how they could do all this. I don’t want to be Father’s servant. I want…” he trailed off then.

She burrowed into his ribs a bit more and stroked his arm. “What do you want?”

“It will never matter what I want. Apparently, I’m to be his punisher, his true and utter ‘poison of God.’ I guess one can never escape their fate, even an archangel.” He gave a strangled sound that must have been an attempt at a laugh at some point but just twisted her heart. “A _former_ archangel. Hardly divine now, am I?”

She stopped herself from cupping his face, only because it would hurt him. “If being divine means kicking your kid to earth, burning him, and also betraying your brother, then I think you’re _a lot_ better than that.”

“I’m hardly good at all, Chloe.”

“I’ve seen you, how gentle you’ve been even half out of it with Trixie. How patient with Linda you are when you let her spill her burdens to you.”

“I might not remember all of that clearly.”

“Maybe but you were awake when you put yourself between your siblings and us to make sure we were safe, and that cost you. You’re very brave, Samael.”

He shook his head. “I’m not him, not anymore. I always preferred the nickname Mum gave me. I lit the heavens and I _am_ the Lightbringer, or I was. I never wanted to be Dad’s poison and enforcer then, and I don’t want to be it now.”

“Maybe you can figure out who you are here on earth instead, define it yourself.”

“I think hideous and lacking wings about covers it.”

“Sam… _Lucifer_ ,” she corrected. “I see someone who took the brunt of a horrible attack to save a woman and a child he barely knew. That’s very noble, and I don’t think any other angel would do that, since your siblings are totally human-a-phobes.”

“Perhaps.”

She lifted his hand enough (or he let her, same difference) to kiss the back of it. Fiery red eyes flickered back at her in what she assumed was confusion.

“I don’t understand. I figured you’d ask me to leave, to move in with Linda so that I could spare your offspring any fear or pain.”

She snuggled into his side further. “Trixie adores you. She’s been so worried. I…she’ll understand. I raised her better than to be afraid of someone who’s been hurt. It might take a bit for her to adjust, but she’s drawn you like a million pictures for months. She has been talking forever about a sing-a-long.”

“Oh, perhaps I’ve a fan after all.”

She smiled up at him. “You have three, Lucifer. I…stay please. I don’t know what your father wants or what his full plan is…what even you ‘showing the preview of Hell’ stuff is supposed to be.”

“I think I can gather a bit. Clearly, I’m a walking warning against Father’s wrath.”

“Your dad?”

“Yes?”

“Is a dick,” she said, and was rewarded when he smiled at her, something she was afraid she’d never see Lucifer do again. “What? It’s true!”

“I agree with you, but humans tend not to curse out the Almighty Presence.”

She shrugged. “Then he needs not to abuse his kid. I know a lot about being a parent and your dad? He’s not one, not a good one.”

“If I’d only just kept quiet---”

“It’s what He wanted.” She frowned up at him. “I think that you must have younger siblings you love very much to try and ask for Free Will for them too.”

His eyes grew brighter. “I have some smaller sisters, especially, who are or can be as precocious as your urchin. The Angel of Death is quite the chatterbox when she wants to be. I just wanted them to be less burdened too. I wanted Mum to be happy again.”

“And you tried, and then you put your body between your siblings and me and Trixie. You’re a better man than you think, Lucifer the Morningstar.”

He frowned at that. “Hmm, I suppose if I’m going to live and make me way among mortals, I should adapt a bit more. Maybe just shorten everything to ‘Lucifer Morningstar.’ What do you think?”

She nodded. “I like that. So, when you get better, uh, what do you want to do?”

“Actually,” he said, brightening at that. “I do love music. I’ve seen so many instruments on television in the Silver City. What’s that big black one with all the keys on it?”

“A piano? Those cost a lot, but maybe I can talk to Linda about what she can swing. She has a way of finding stuff. However, I got Trixie a Casio keyboard for Christmas two years ago. Maybe you can start learning on that.”

“Splendid. I…I think I need a while to heal before I think of anything beyond these walls, if that’s alright?”

She kissed the back of his hand again. “Take all the time you need. Honestly, you can replace Olga as Trixie’s sitter. She likes you better, and I’m not worried about her being attacked by anything with an archangel at her side.”

“Former,” he replied bitterly.

“No, Lucifer, I can still see it, that light in you. You’re definitely an angel.”

“I…perhaps,” he said, no more committal than that. Then, he focused his attention on the window, at the beautiful sliver of blue sky over the ocean. She wondered if he was thinking about flying then. “So,” he continued, trying to keep his tone light. “do you think I can learn the songs from that delightful _Frozen_ or from Elvis on this Casio of yours?”

She groaned. Now she was never getting **_that_** song out of her head.


	2. Oscars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in the "Once Upon a Time" universe from 3.26 and after the events of the episode.

**2\. Oscars**

He loved to watch her.

It was silly and sappy, but he hadn’t found as much peace in all his holidays top side as he had in the embrace of Chloe Decker. A year ago, when they’d both worked to solve a murder and save his club’s reputation (and help her late friend), Lucifer would have said she was fun to be with. And of course she was---brilliant, funny, and incredibly determined. Sometimes, he thought that Chloe really had found the wrong profession and that her about to be _six_ times playing Bonnie Genaro were a deeper sign that she would have been destined to be a cop in another life, one where her overly protective prat of a father had enough trust _not_ to block her attempted entrance into police academy.

Just as well, Lucifer supposed.

Chloe Decker was a goddess, and the camera loved her. It would have been a waste to have her toiling away in a dimly lit precinct on endless paperwork when she owned the silver screen. However, he might have helped steer her a bit, called in a few favors to allow her to broaden her range in between the bread-and-butter of _The Weaponizer_ films.

“You’re staring,” the woman in question replied, even though she made no motion to pull up the dark silk sheets over her breasts, ones as pert as they’d been back in his favorite film _Hot Tub High School_ , not that he’d told her that.

Lucifer tried to force the besotted grin off his face. The Devil didn’t fall in love. Mazikeen, before she and her cult had split to run Lux Vegas, had told him as much. They’d had quite the spectacular row before she departed. And she wasn’t wrong. He’d gone so very soft lately, and he couldn’t say he hated it either. He still ran Lux in L.A., still granted favors. Hell, he and Chloe didn’t have an exclusive arrangement---though he desperately wanted to---and so for the first few months he’d had as many orgies and threesomes on the weeknights as he’d wanted, but that had trailed off. He honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept with someone who wasn’t Chloe, and that should bother him. He’d never been exclusive when on earth before, although he’d never gone years before, had that much leverage over Amenadiel. His former self would have laughed at such a thought, at how mostly tame he’d grown.

Then again, it was more than worth it for the woman before him.

“Now, you’re totally staring,” Chloe said, laughing and reaching over to ruffle his hair. “Look, I have a gown fitting, and then I have to go to Harry Winston to find the right jewelry and get the security rules spiel.”

“Darling, I could buy you any diamonds or sapphires…whatever you’d prefer with your gown that you wanted.”

Chloe blushed at that, a faint hint of pink coloring her cheeks. “I know, but it’s just one night. I’ve never presented at the Oscars before, never quite had that right profile for it until that indie film went so well at the Golden Globes, but, well, it’s what most people do. It’s not like most of us own that much bling.” She frowned. “Okay, possibly J-Lo. But you really don’t have to dump five million to ice me out.”

Lucifer chuckled. “It would be no trouble. I’ve had bank accounts since Europeans invented the concept of banking. I’ve more money than even I could spend during my immortal life span. I’d love to treat you.”

Chloe stiffened at that, and he wanted to sigh but stayed resolute. She did that whenever he reminded her too pointedly about the Devil stuff. Not that he’d ever lied to her, not that he _ever_ would lie to anyone on principle. However, Chloe seemed to be an expert at only hearing what she wanted to, and try as he might, Lucifer couldn’t get her to understand that when he said he was _The Devil_ , it didn’t involve elaborate metaphors or a club persona he’d cultivated for the Lux brand.

Then again, there was a way to prove it to her. Only one since she seemed stubbornly and oddly immune to his desire mojo. Would that for once he hadn’t been quite so capricious on the beach and cut his wings off. But Lucifer had flipped his father the grandest of birds (semi-literally), and now the only way to get Chloe to understand would have been to show her his true face. Something he could never do. It was punishment after all, and it had driven more than one human mad just with a glance.

He wished never to put his beloved through such torment. Not if he could help it, but dear Dad how he wished she believed him. How he wished it didn’t feel like this wall being slowly built between them, no matter how honest he tried to be.

“It’s alright then, luv,” he said, sitting up. “I’ve club business to attend to, but I’ve got my own tux arranged for of course. Do you want me to come by your place tomorrow? I’m sure the day before the ceremony, you’ll be a ball of nerves.” He licked his lower lip and tried to grin guilelessly back at her, a look he was sure he’d failed at. “I know all the tricks for loosening a bird up.”

Chloe rolled her eyes and kissed him, long and lingering. “I have way too much to get ready today and Saturday. Besides, I have dinner with Mom and Dad anyway. Mom did the Oscars, believe it or not, once in the mid-80s as a presenter. She wants to trade tips.”

She stood them and started hopping around the room, shoving on her clothes from last night.

“Chloe, have you ever thought of being exclusive?”

The traitorous words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. He wasn’t sure what she’d say, especially when any of his Devil talk tended to freeze her up. Lucifer hadn’t ever wanted to ask, if only because it gave her a chance to say no, to admit she had other chaps on the side.

Chloe almost fell over shoving one boot on before she recovered her balance and sat heavily down on the corner of his bed. “What?”

“I…honestly, Miss Decker,” he said, winking at her. “I haven’t slept with anyone else in at least six months.”

She snorted. “But you run the most _debauched_ club in town.”

“I do, and I try to maintain a reputation for the club. It doesn’t mean I have the same reputation truly for myself, at least not now.”

“I…” Chloe swallowed hard and her skin was more than pink, was heading toward fire hydrant levels of red. It was cute, as was everything else she did. “I wish I’d known.”

Lucifer ignored the pain in his heart that stabbed it steadily. Oh, well she had been seeing another bloke after all. “It’s alright if you’ve…I didn’t make it clear I’d changed my feelings. I was afraid to ask for more. You’re such a busy, in demand actress after all. Superstar really.”

“Oh, like being a club mogul makes you an unassuming cat lady or the guy equivalent.”

“No, not as such, but if you’ve…I understand. I needed to be clearer.” He sighed and leaned against his headboard. “If you don’t want to try this as a one-to-one relationship, I can’t say I’d be pleased because I fancy you quite a bit, but I would try and understand. I’d rather have you in my life even as a friend with benefits than not at all, Chloe.”

She nodded. “It’s a big decision.”

Chloe raked a hand through her hair, which was still hopelessly tangled and screamed bedhead. It was one of the things Lucifer loved most about her, that hair that always betrayed how well and truly he’d fucked her after a good shag. A small sign but one nevertheless that she was his.

Or was she?

“It’s fine,” he said. “Forget I ever asked if it makes things awkward.”

A soft, small hand was on his shoulder. “It’s not about you. I haven’t seen anyone else since a too-late night with a co-star four months ago, and I felt awful about it afterwards, about somehow that might hurt you.”

Lucifer quirked his head at her. That was not the best news to hear, but it warmed his heart that she had also started to think and act as if this between them was more than just attraction and convenience. If he were a more sentimental fool, well, if he _allowed_ himself to be, Lucifer might have even called it “fate.”

“Alright, darling, then what is it?”

Chloe stroked his shoulder. “My family…I know it’s hard for you to get it since you hate your family, and the few times Amenadiel has shown up here, I was scared it was gonna come to blows.”

And without a mortal around, it surely would have.

“True, but I’ve heard not every family is as royally fucked up as my own.”

“Yes, but my dad---”

“Yes, Lieutenant Decker never has warmed to me, has he?”

“I hoped he might. Mom adores you.”

“Penelope has taste.”

“But I just…I know Dad has all sorts of ideas of how his little monkey should be. I want to be that for him. I mean, I wish I could be. I just…I’m not sure if I can date someone, be as serious as I want to be with you, if it makes my father mad at me.”

Lucifer smirked. “Fathers are good for unbridled wrath I’ve found.”

“Lucifer!”

He sighed and kissed her cheek. “I don’t get along with mine, and that would be a cosmic understatement, darling, but I know you adore yours. I understand if you want to talk it over with him before you give your answer. And, honestly luv, no matter what you decide, I’d still be here. Maybe it’s a bit pathetic.” Sod it; it was pathetic. The Devil had never begged for scraps so eagerly before. “but I need you in my life and if just casually is all you can give, I’ll gladly take that too.”

Chloe’s eyes were shinier than normal as she regarded him. “It’ll go well with Dad. I know it.”

Lucifer kissed her and held her close, just in case some blow out with the Lieutenant led to him losing her for good. It was always a possibility, and one he couldn’t bear. “Of course, darling. I’m sure it will.”

And for the first time in his life, the Devil told a lie.

**

“You’re still seeing that mentally ill club owner? Monkey, I’m so disappointed.”

Chloe wished she’d been able to broach everything with her dad and mom on Saturday, but her mother had been called for some last minute, emergency ADR on her latest film across town, which left her sitting on her parents’ deck and picking at a burger. Her dad was a great griller, but the looming fight they were about to have made the meat feel like bricks in her stomach.

“Dad, you knew I’d been seeing Lucifer. It’s not like the paps keep it quiet or TMZ. Besides, I bring him around every so often cause he and Mom get along at least.”

Her dad narrowed his eyes at her in what she always thought as his cop interrogation mode. “Monkey, your mom is great, but she can be very ditzy. I mean, she isn’t always the best judge of character. When you were twelve, she lost about five grand to a fake psychic. Well, all psychics are fake.”

Chloe decided not to offer the counter proof that even if he _couldn’t_ affect her, that Lucifer did do something odd she had pegged somewhere between neurolinguistic programming and Jedi mind trick. It wouldn’t help her now.

“I know. And I get it. Lucifer’s schtick is weird.”  
  
“He goes around pretending to be the Devil.”

“It’s not like we’re a religious household, Dad.”  
  


“No, but you can do so much better than a night club owner who will cheat on you at some point, kiddo, and one who is clearly delusional. Honey, you’re so much better than he is.”

Chloe set her burger down and pushed her plate away. There was no way she was getting her appetite back after that. “You don’t know him like I do.”

“Don’t I? Do you know that he has no records, none that go back before 2011? What even is that?”

She blinked up at him all the while trying to deny the nausea roiling up in her throat. Her father hadn’t, had he? “You used the LAPD database to dig on Lucifer?”

“You started screwing up crime scenes, pretending to be an actual cop---which is a crime, by the way---and were following around a guy who we’ve never been able to pin drug dealing on but have a lot of circumstantial evidence about Molly rings. Of course, I did. I ran every bit of info I could think of _and_ talked to my remaining underworld contacts. Honey, before about eight years ago Lucifer Morningstar didn’t even exist.”

“A lot of people change identities. I think it’s pretty clear his dad’s messed up. I assumed some religious cult in England gone way, way wrong, okay? If you’re running from that to a whole new country, then of course you’d have newer records.”

“He has no INS papers.”

She frowned at that and crossed her arms over her chest. Part of her had always wondered about his accent, especially since his brother was American, but she assumed it went with the whole blended family thing. “How much did you dig?”

“As much as I could, but not enough to turn up much of anything. Lux’s books are clean.”

“Then that’s good!”

“They’re too clean, clearly counterfeit, Monkey. And he used to be represented by Charlotte Richards and her firm was expensive _because_ it catered to criminals most of the time. They pay best, need the most help laundering their fortunes and hiding their skeletons. He’s a criminal.”

“You said you didn’t find proof. I’ve never seen him do anything shady.” Except, okay, like a ton of weed and sometimes some coke, but really it wasn’t like he sold it in front of her. “He’s a good man.”

“You don’t know anything about him.”

“Of course I do!” She shouted, standing up and starting to pace in her frustration. “I know Lucifer, and he’s a good man.”

“If you know him so well, sweetheart,” her dad said, and he looked so tired and grey then, as if all the fight had drained out of him. “then what’s his _real_ name because we all know it’s not ‘Lucifer Morningstar?’”

She stilled and gaped at him.

Her father had her there. She loved Lucifer. She did, and Chloe didn’t care what her father wanted for her. The fact he’d had so little faith in her and her relationship that he’d abused police resources to spy on Lucifer made her even more determined to embrace their relationship. However, she couldn’t deny her dad had a point. She knew what Lucifer _wanted_ her to know, and she wanted to start into a deeper arrangement with him, to be _exclusive_ , but she couldn’t do that if she didn’t even know his real, given name.

“I don’t know.”

**

Lucifer smirked back at Chloe. She was wearing a six-thousand-dollar Donna Karen that hugged every curve of her body and with light sky blue silk that complimented her gorgeous eyes, even managed to bring out her beauty mark just right. It clashed with the décor of the _Waffle House_ around them, but she’d been starving after the presentations and just too over the pomp and circumstance of it all to go to the after-after parties.

He had never been to such an establishment because Dear Dad why would he?

But Belgian waffles had been her craving, and he had always been a sucker for giving his leading lady everything she’d ever asked for. So here he was, eating some hash browns with extra ketchup in a truly valuable Brioni and stifling a laugh at how the whipped cream of the waffle had dotted her nose.

If he played it cool, he’d be able to snap a picture for blackmail purposes with his mobile before she realized that she had such a _Cool Whip_ problem.

“You still look radiant, darling, the most beautiful sight in the whole restaurant.”

She gestured to the diamonds around her neck. “I better be. I return these to Harry Winston first thing in the morning, and if I can’t outshine the Waffle House booths dressed to the nines, then I really am not a good actress.”  
  


“You’re perfect.”

She nodded and reached across the table to take his hand in hers. Funny how such a small gesture made him content. It was ridiculous in a way; he was the Devil and far from a blushing schoolboy, but everything felt _more_ when Chloe was involved.

“So, I have really been thinking about your question. I didn’t want you to think I hadn’t.”

“And you talked with the Lieutenant,” he said, a knot of worry growing heavy in his gut.

“Yeah, and I realized that what Dad had to say doesn’t matter.” She squeezed his hand to emphasize her point. “In fact, the more he frankly got upset about you, the more I realized I _don’t_ need Dad’s approval at all. I love you, and I do want to be more than friends with benefits. I want all of it.”

He beamed back at her. “Then that’s brilliant, Chloe.”

And yet she hadn’t leaned across the table to kiss him, and that didn’t bode well. “But he made one good point, and I can’t deny that.”

“Oh, do tell what the LT had to offer, darling?”

“Dad’s more than his job.” She stilled and wrinkled her nose back at him. “Well, sometimes. Anyway, what’s your real name?”

He blinked at her, dumbfounded. They’d gone over that on day one, of course. “‘Lucifer Morningstar’ is my name, luv.”

Her eyes were too shiny again, and he hated himself for that. Chloe pulled her hand from his and he felt the loss of her grip like a physical blow. “I know you had some kind of huge trauma in your life. I get that. I figure you’re on the run from most of your family if Amenadiel is any clue to how the rest treat you.”  
  


“He’s not the worst of it, no,” Lucifer answered, suddenly finding his half-eaten hash browns fascinating.

“But I wish I knew who you were before you started Lux up and before the Devil persona came to be, you know?” She frowned back at him. “I’d never tell anyone else, but I can’t fall for--- _I won’t let myself fall in love with_ \---someone whose real name I don’t even know.”

“I am the Devil, Chloe.” He said, sighing loudly. Lucifer dared to look up at her and a few stray tears were slipping down her cheeks. “I’m not delusional, and I’m not a liar, but I _am_ literally the Prince of Darkness. I’ve tried to explain it to you more than a few times, and I wish I could prove it. I cut off my wings, and I can’t get your desires from you. Still have no idea why that is. There’s only one other way, really, to truly prove it, and I’m scared to try because I don’t know how it will affect you.”

“Lucifer, you can’t be the Devil because Heaven, Hell…all of it? It’s not true,” she said, her voice cracking at the end of her sentence.

He shook his head. “Let’s retire back to Lux. I suppose this time was always going to come. If you require proof, I’d rather do it in private and not terrify the waitress.”

Chloe reached out and squeezed his hand again, but she was still crying. “If you need to embrace this whole ‘I’m the Devil’ thing to cope with what I suspect is a ton of child abuse…I don’t completely understand it, but I get that it’s what you have to do, but you were someone before you were ‘The Devil,’ and you’re just not the Devil, not to me.”

He was about to argue that point that while technically once he’d been the archangel Samael, he was well and truly Satan now, when three men in ski masks burst through the front door. The trio were brandishing weapons and while one was heading directly for the counter, the others had spotted them as the diner’s only customers and were heading their way.

“Bugger,” Lucifer spit out before getting to his feet and putting himself between his leading lady and the hooligans.

**

“We want the necklace and whatever is in your purse and wallet.” The taller of the two men said.

Chloe’s heart sank. She didn’t care about her purse. She didn’t have much in her clutch, and she suspected that Lucifer felt the same way about his wallet. It would take longer and be more of a hassle to get everything canceled and re-ordered, but it wasn’t anything she couldn’t bear to part with. However, her fingers found their way to the heavy diamond necklace around her throat. It was worth well over five million, and she didn’t want to explain to Harry Winston in the morning that thieves in the valley had made off with it.

“I can’t,” she said.  
  


The shorter of the thieves pulled the trigger on his nine mil and held it sideways to her. Amateurs, a small part of her mind reminded her. She’d grown up with her dad and gone to the range both with him and for film training to know the differences. These kids were young and green, which was worse because they’d be more impulsive.

“Now, lady!” the short one barked.

She swallowed. It had to be insured. It would be a huge black mark on her record, but she would live to see tomorrow if she gave up the jewelry. Undoing the clasp, she slid the necklace off and cupped it in her palm. “Alright, I have this and my clutch. It doesn’t have much in it, but you can take it.”

The taller one aimed his gun at Lucifer’s chest. “Your wallet and your ring too.”

  
Wrong thing to say apparently, even as she handed her goods to the short one. Lucifer’s voice grew deeper, almost like a growl, and she’d never heard him so upset.

“My father gave that ring to me. You can’t have it.”

She blinked. He’d never taken the onyx ring off, not once even in the hot tub or in bed. She had no idea it was from his family or that Lucifer would even be interested in keeping it near him, especially if it came from his dad.

“Lucifer, please,” she begged. “Everything is replaceable. You aren’t.”

The taller one stepped closer and his muzzle was less than a foot from Lucifer’s heart. “Listen to your bitch. You won’t last long with bullets in you, and we’ll get the ring either way.”

“Would you?” Lucifer asked, his voice so low and gruff that it almost sounded like a different person.

The shorter thief seemed to lose his patience, and Chloe dove back into the booth even as gunshots, as loud as thunder, rang out above her. She rolled to her side in the booth, just enough to see Lucifer’s body recoil with the force of the bullets hitting his chest. She screamed. God did she scream. And even if she’d played tough as nails Bonnie Genaro in so many films, even if she’d idolized her dad her whole life and thought she might have made a good cop somehow, Chloe felt frozen in this moment. Any instinct she had to dive into the fray died out as her mind reeled and Lucifer’s body jerked back at least a few more times.

“No!”

She shot up in her seat and reached up to his shoulders, preparing to ease him into the booth beside her and find a way to use her Oscars dress, some rip of the expansive skirt, _something_ , to staunch the inevitable blood flow.

But that didn’t happen.

As she watched from behind, Lucifer _changed_. The skin of his neck grew red and raw and crowded its way up his scalp until his dark hair was gone and a craggy land of burned, crimson flesh was all that was left behind. A quick glance to his hands told her that they matched the burns and furrows of his head.

Instinctively, Chloe threw herself to the furthest corner of the booth, her mind stuck on one impossible thought: _It’s all true, it’s all true_.

Lucifer roared and it felt as if the sound were too large to be contained in the confines of the restaurant. Something primitive and tiny, some scared caveman part of her brain, was shouting at her to run, but she was too scared to do more than shake in place as a nightmare unfurled.

Lucifer grabbed both men by the lapel of their shirts and hurled them into the counter. They hit with a sickening crunch, one that dented the Formica, but they seemed to moan once they landed. Though they were unconscious, they at least seemed to still be moving and breathing a bit. Chloe was shaking so hard, and all she wanted to do was run. The Devil had been her friend---oh fuck her _friend with benefits_ and she’d had sex with the Devil---for over a year. Was she going to Hell?

Was it too late to run?  
  


Would he follow her?

Lucifer turned to her, and despite her shock, Chloe shrieked. She thought seeing him from behind was bad enough, but that perspective hadn’t prepared her for the front view. His face was a ravaged as his scalp, with deep furrows and blistered lips. But it was his eyes that hit her hardest. The soulful brown ones she’d grown so used to were replaced by ones that danced with living hellfire and, at first, blazed so bright that it was hard to look at him, like staring at the sun. But, soon enough, the flames dimmed, and Lucifer took a step back.

“Darling…Chloe, I tried to tell you. I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have had to see that.”

She wanted to say something, wanted to tell him it was okay. He’d been abandoned so many times in his life, and she didn’t want to be one more, but the actual, very _literal_ Devil was staring back at her with eyes full of flame and she could only whimper.

“Chloe, I---” He started but turned to the noise coming from the far side of the griddle. The first criminal had returned with a sack full of whatever money the Waffle House had to have had on hand. “Give me on second, please.”

He turned to the counter and she let him. She couldn’t have run if she wanted to, mostly because her legs felt like noodles and her lizard brain was screaming at her.

“Drop the cash, you cretin, and I’ll let you go,” Lucifer said.

The only thief still standing held up his gun to Lucifer. “Get the fuck away from me, man.”

Lucifer sighed and there was still that theatrical nature to his actions even now. He gestured to the front of his ruined shirt and Brioni jacket, both torn and stained by powder burns. “You’d just be wasting ammo. I’m the Devil, you thick prat. You can’t scratch me.”

The man aimed anyway, and Lucifer shuddered with the impact but let the criminal empty a clip in him. When that didn’t do so much as even knock Lucifer back, the thief dropped the gun and lunged for a knife behind the counter.

“What the fuck are you?”  
  


Lucifer shook his head and hazarded a quick glance back at her. “The Devil. I keep explaining that to everyone tonight. What? The red skin and scary eyes aren’t a clue, you git?”

The thief, apparently deciding he’d had enough, leapt forward for Lucifer and tried to bury a knife in his gut. The blade just bent back as if it had struck a steel wall. There was another growl, one that made Chloe whimper and shake harder than she already had, and Lucifer grabbed the man by the throat and held him high over his own head.

She couldn’t see from her angle, but she had the worst feeling his eyes were blazing high, just from the way the thief stared at them and started to shriek. It made her want to vomit, but she was too scared to even do that.

Lucifer’s voice was a low growl again, not quite human because of course he’d _never_ been human, had he? “Go now, be glad I’m sparing all your rotten lives. Remember though,” he said, even as the thief kicked uselessly out at Lucifer’s knees. “you are _mine_ when you die, and oh what tortures I’ll have for you, especially the two of you who dared try and shoot my girl. Do you understand?”

He dropped the criminal with a thud to the floor, and the man made a small keening noise even as he crab-walked to the counter. “You’re the Devil! The Devil…” and he continued to say that over and over in the midst of an incoherent torrent of words.

Lucifer turned to her and frowned. “I’m sorry, Chloe, but I can’t…I’m too worked up to force the glamour over my true face currently. I can’t…” he stopped and they both quirked their heads at the sound of approaching sirens. The lone employee must still have been alright and able to call the cops. “I beg your pardon, but I can’t stay…I…” The light again dimmed in those hell fire eyes and if she was even close to reading them right, Lucifer seemed sad.

But that couldn’t be, could it?

“I get it,” Chloe stammered out.

“Yes, quite,” he said, gathering his wallet from the booth but politely not drawing any closer to her. “May I come by your place tomorrow night?” He offered her a sad smile that might have broken her heart under any other circumstance. “I promise I’ll be more pleasing to the eye by then. I…I wish for you to hear me out, and if I can’t explain it well enough, well, then you’re free to end everything. I just want one chance to plead my case.”

The sirens were growing louder, and she looked toward through the plate glass windows to see which units were here first, if possibly anyone she knew from her dad’s precinct was on this case.

When she glanced back to Lucifer, he was gone.

**

She couldn’t stop shaking.

In fact, Chloe could only recall one other time in her life when she’d felt this confused and terrified, and it had been when her mom had picked her up from the set to tell her that her dad had been shot and was in surgery in the hospital. Luckily, the jerk had missed her dad’s heart by less than an inch, and he’d pulled through. However, this wasn’t even as simple (not that heart wounds were such a thing) as her dad’s shooting almost twenty years back. This was…Lucifer really was _that_ Lucifer, and there was nothing she could do to change that.

Her father sat next to her at the station as her mind somehow stayed working enough to give her statement. Most of her felt like blubbering almost as badly as the thieves, like she was an inch away herself from just saying “He’s the Devil” on a loop, but she managed to get through the story and even promised she’d make sure that Lucifer would give his statement in a few days about how he’d detained or, okay, thrashed the perps.

After that, she barely remembered her father gathering her up and leading her to his office. Now she was on his sofa with a blanket still tied around her shoulders and a cooling cup of stale precinct coffee in her hands.

Her father finally returned, shutting the door to his office behind him, and regarded her. “Monkey, are you okay?”

She nodded and wanted to smile, wanted to find way to reassure him at all, but her expression faltered. Instead, she forced herself to drink the lukewarm coffee. It was bitter. But the sharp taste kept her grounded, reminded her that she was alive and that, somehow, this was still reality.

Alive because the Devil had kept some assholes from shooting her mid-robbery.

Because of the actual, literal, very Biblical Devil.

  
The one she’d slept with so many times. Was she going to Hell? Did he want her soul? Wait, had he already found a way to steal her soul? God… _fuck_ , would she even know if it were gone?

Her father touched her shoulder and she jumped almost a foot in the air. “Monkey, you’re spacing out. What on earth actually happened?”

Her dad sat down beside her on the sofa and kept his hand on her shoulder. She was glad. She needed that tether to reality too because everything in the last three hours seemed impossible, like one of her mother’s dumber movies.

“I…it was like I said. They came in, Lucifer stopped them, but he doesn’t really like cops, so he left and---”

“He doesn’t like cops because we all can tell his club is dirty somehow.”

_If only her father knew…_

“But it’s fine. They were pretty young, Dad, and they were itching to have an excuse to shoot someone. If Lucifer hadn’t been there, I might have been shot.”

Her dad shook his head. “There’s still something so wrong with that guy. Who leaves a woman like that after she’s been scared half to death? I’d never abandon your mother like that.”

She nodded, but it was even harder to explain that her fear was _because_ of Lucifer and what had he called it? His true face, right? It was because of that she was so scared. The men with guns had barely fazed her. It was L.A. after all, and not her first time being in a crime that wasn’t on film.

“Besides, and you can be honest with me, sweetheart, but you know something else happened.”  
  


She almost dropped her coffee but managed to set it on the table closest to her. Her dad couldn’t know, could he? The Waffle House had been pretty bare bones, but it was possible there was a camera or two around.

“Nothing else happened,” she said, as if someone would finally believe her.

Her father leaned in closer to her and narrowed his eyes. “Then can you tell me _how_ Lucifer threw two grown men across a room hard enough to dent through a counter? The metal frame under the Formica seems bent. He’s tall but wiry, and there was no way the thieves lined up to just let them both be overwhelmed like that while armed with nine mils. So, if you just say steroids or stimulants or God knows what, then I can’t even quite believe that. There’s PCP strong, and then there’s downright impossible.”

She took in a shuddering breath. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“The truth, Monkey. Something went very wrong tonight, and I’ve seen a few weird crimes in my time in L.A. I don’t know exactly what I think happened, but I do have three criminals half coherent in a holding cell ranting about literal Satan. So, you tell me. There had to at least be drugs or hallucinogens involved somehow. Maybe something _worse_.”

“There weren’t drugs. I told the detectives on the scene what happened and repeated it here. This is the third time I’m saying it. It happened like I said. I…Lucifer is supposed to check on me tomorrow, and I’ll remind him to come by the station, okay? He can give his own statement, and it’ll match mine.”

  
Because Lucifer never lied exactly. He had told her the truth every day since she’d met him. It was just too crazy, too big to believe. While he was a master at skating the truth by omission, Lucifer took great pride in being blunt in his words. And with the truth. Besides, except for “oh he was red faced and the freaking Devil” the whole time, the way she’d described it had been how it had happened.

Her dad’s hand tightened its grip. “Will you stop seeing him, now?”

“I…” she didn’t say no right away. Even a few hours ago, she would be cursing her dad out for even implying that PCP or some other drug was the reason for Lucifer’s strength (although, to be fair, still made more sense than Fallen fucking angel). Now, she wasn’t sure what she’d say to Lucifer tomorrow, but she suddenly didn’t feel like sticking up for him like she had before. After all, she wasn’t even sure her soul was safe.

Was it?

“I honestly don’t know,” Chloe said. “We’re going to talk everything out at my place, and then…I have this movie offer I’d been thinking over anyway. It shoots in Europe, and even if we’ve been more casual, I didn’t want to take it and be out of L.A. for months, you know?”

Her father leaned forward and wrapped her up in a hug, and Chloe let him. She couldn’t handle any of this, couldn’t deal with the horror of any of it---almost dying, the robbery, who Lucifer actually was. She just wanted to be seven again and let her dad fix it like he used to when she was small, and all her problems were simple.

  
And sane.

“I think that sounds like a smart idea, honey. You need to…he’s not good for you. Some distance and some time without him crowding your space when you’re not onset would help a lot with that.”

She nodded and finally broke, letting out great sobs as her father stroked her back. Chloe let him rock her as she cried, as the adrenaline faded from her system, leaving her tired and bereft. “I’m just not sure.”

**

Lucifer hadn’t actually been nervous when he’d lost the Rebellion. He hadn’t been nervous at the trial afterwards or even at the sentencing when his twin, Michael the Sword of God, had struck the final blow and physically ejected him into the lake of fire down below. No. He’d been furious and indignant, but he’d understood the costs of Rebellion. What was that thing the human Machiavelli said? If you shoot to the kill the king, don’t miss? Some rot like that. It was true. If you lost a revolt, then the inevitable was being put down as ruthlessly as possible.

It made sense that Father had made quite the example of him and the few siblings who had stood with him. Most had been obliterated from existence. A few were sent to Hell after his initial tumble to be twisted and tangled into Fallen as well. But for him, of course, the worst punishment, not just forced to rule over a kingdom of ash and eternal torment, of demons he couldn’t stand except for a few choice Lilim like Maze, but also his face. It was a signal to all the Host to never even _think_ of rebelling again, or they’d get worse.

But he’d never been nervous once the fighting had begun.

Now he was.

It was odd because he didn’t even realize when Chloe Decker had come to mean so much to him. Maybe it hadn’t even been till last night and in the let down after everything in his penthouse. He’d been running on anger and fear for her life at the diner, but back home he could let his mind replay it a hundred times over. The thought he could have lost her…it twisted something urgent and deep in his soul.

It was then that Lucifer fully realized that it wasn’t just exclusivity he wanted with his leading lady. No. He wanted so much more, as much as she could or would give him.

  
Because he was in love with her.

And now he was pressing the gate code to her estate in the hills and taking the fact she hadn’t changed it between last night and tonight as a faint good sign. She wasn’t locking him out (not that technically she could), and Chloe seemed at least willing to hear him out. But Lucifer could still lose her, and after a year with that goddess in his bed and her kind, sly humor warming his heart and day-to-day life, Lucifer didn’t want that.

_Wow, Dad, didn’t see this coming. Great way to create a new form of torture._

He pulled his Corvette up her driveway and hopped out. That anxiety was lancing through his stomach and igniting a fire in his veins even as he knocked on the door. “Chloe, may I come in? I won’t tarry long if you just hear me out. _Please_.”

And Mazikeen would laugh at him, would throw her head back and embrace a full-throated chuckle to see the King of Hell reduced to begging.

Chloe Decker really had no appreciation for the effect she had on him, for how thoroughly she’d changed him. Lucifer was unclear yet if it was for the better or not.

The door was unlocked, and it did not escape his keen ears that there were _several_ more locks in place than just the deadbolt he was previously familiar with. Chloe stood there in a pair of jeans, a crew sweatshirt from one of the innumerable _Weaponizer_ films, and her hair pulled up in a messy, impromptu bun. Her eyes were red rimmed and swollen, and Lucifer wasn’t sure if that was from crying or from lack of sleep.

He feared it was both reasons, and it didn’t bode well for him.

“May I come in?” he asked, offering her as gentle a smile as he could.

“What happens if I say no?”

“Well, I would go home of course. I don’t want to be where I’m not wanted, and, to be blunt, I’ve got more than half of Los Angeles wanting me, darling.”

Chloe glowered at him. Right. Maybe not pointing out his ample choice of bed partners was for the best tonight. “No, I mean, if I said no could you even come in? Are there rules for that?”

“No, I’m not the undead, Chloe. I’m just polite. Besides,” he said, straightening his lapels. “I’m a proud enough bloke to recognize when I’m not wanted at all. I refuse to impose on you like that. So, I repeat, Miss Decker, may I come in?”

She took a deep breath and it was a while---too long a while---before she yanked the door back farther and stepped aside to let him enter. “You can come through into the den. My dogs are outside.”

Lucifer breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes, I would rather not have to deal with those yapping hassles.”

“Keep talking like that, and Bea and Trix will eat you.”

“They’re hardly wolves, are they?” he said, falling into old banter easily with her.

“Overpampered giant rats at best.”

“They’re Yorkies, and they’re purebred! I don’t know why you’re not a dog person…” She frowned and took a seat on her sofa. Lucifer, sensing that discretion was the better part of valor, took refuge in an overstuffed recliner instead. “…wait is there like that three-headed hellhound thing?”

“Oh dear, it’s going to be one of those conversations, isn’t it?”

She blinked. “What kind?”

“Where you ask a million questions about the supernatural world and Hell and everything in between, yes?”

“No, but I read some Greek myths with my set tutor once in like eighth grade. The three-headed dog thing stood out!”

“Cerberus, and yes, he exists. We’re not exceptionally close, but he’s useful when the demons get antsy and need some discipline of their own.”

Chloe swallowed hard at that and studied her knees. “So demons real. Hellhounds real. Devils also a thing, check.”

“One.”

“Huh?” she asked, still not meeting his gaze. “What?”

“Devil. I’m rather singular, darling, accept _no_ substitutes.”

She laughed, and it was a joy to hear that unfettered humor in her voice again. It died out fast, as she seemed to remember exactly who she was talking to. Finally, Chloe looked up at him, and he recognized that expression too. Had seen fear before in a lover’s eyes, though only a couple times before.

He'd been sloppy then too.

“You’re the only one?”

“Yes, that part is accurate. There is no one on any plane like me. Broke the mold, of course.”

She nodded and pulled her knees to her chest. “Do other people know?”

“No one but you currently. Mazikeen of course, but she’s Lilim and came with me from Hell.”

“What’s a Lilim?”

“The smartest of the demons, the best warriors too. She’s my bodyguard. I’ve released her from service to do as she pleases at Lux Vegas. However, no humans alive know about me save you.”

“Have others before?”

Lucifer nodded and started to twist the ring on his hand. And old habit, but a somehow reassuring one nevertheless. “A couple. I never meant for them to know, just as I never wanted to show you, although clearly we were headed that way with your request for my true name, which is obviously Lucifer, by the way.”

And it was. Samael was well and truly dead and had been before humans had walked the earth.

“Yeah, see that now,” she said, wincing a little and looking away from his face.

“Yes, well, Will took it better than some. Mostly decided he was hallucinating on too much drink that night and used it to fuel that line about ‘more things in heaven and earth, Horatio.’”

She blinked back up at him. “What?”

“William Shakespeare. I assume you’ve heard of him, luv.”

“Yeah, but wow.”

“Yes, well, he wasn’t as good in the sack as you, to be fair.”

She blushed at that. “Anyone else? Maybe Catherine the Great or Liz Taylor. Don’t spare it now.”

“Those two interesting women are off my list, and usually a gentleman never tells.” He ignored her loud snort and the mocking of his “gentle” status. “However, Oscar Wilde was never quite the same. I do fear I half drove him mad since he couldn’t quite write it off as a dream or a fault of the drink.”

“Wait so…”

He shrugged. “ _Dorian Gray_ came from somewhere, yes,” Lucifer said, twisting his ring again. “But I’d rather not play twenty questions about heaven and hell tonight. There’s plenty of time for all of that, for what _else_ exists and also for what I did to Hitler. People, I bet, are curious on that one.”

“I assume it was bad.”

“Oh, it is! Some of my best work, but that’s not relevant to us, Chloe. I want you to know I’d never hurt you.”

She swallowed and she was crying, fat tears sliding down her cheeks, as Chloe regarded him. “But you did. You lied---”

“I never would!”

“You let me think you were eclectic or playing a role or it was some club persona. You knew I didn’t believe you!”

“I kept trying to tell you,” he said, standing and pacing by the recliner. He forced himself to circle it like some impotent shark because he knew if he had full freedom of her den to roam around that it would just scare her more. “Without the face, people rarely believe me. You least of all, darling, since I cannot elicit desires from you.”

“So that really is a gift from God?”

“All angels, even Fallen ones, have powers gifted to them by Father. I’ve a pillock of an older sibling who can stop time. I can get any mortal until you to tell me their deepest wish by asking.”

“Why not me?”

He stilled and quirked his head at her, offering her what he suspected was the reason, although he wasn’t sure. “I think it’s because I’m in love with you.”

Chloe grabbed her knees closer, and he could see her shudder. It was enough to send him crashing heavily back into the seat of her armchair. “You can’t be. I…you’re here for my soul, right? This is a long game.”

And he’d rather have Michael kick him back into Hell than ever have his leading lady suspect that of him. “No, Chloe. I have no interest in your soul. I get a bad rap for that, actually. I have never dealt in souls. I was on holiday here, and I found you fascinating. I care about you…I _love_ you, but I have never wanted your soul.”

“So, one day when I do die, where do I go?”

“That’s up to you. I have no control over it. Honestly, neither does Dad. The system He set up is based on human guilt alone. If you feel you deserve it, then you go to Hell. I’d avoid any sins just to stay safe, but you’re hardly an awful person. You should be fine.”

“I had sex with the Devil,” she hissed, tearing up.

“And you’re welcome!”

“I’m serious.”  
  


He sighed and played with one of his cufflinks instead. “I know you are, and so am I. I do not lie, even now, and I have no dominion over your soul at all. When that time comes for you, having had a relationship with me will not affect your final destination. I haven’t damned you. I would _never_ do that.”

“But you live in Hell.”

“Exactly, and I know it’s a bloody awful place. Had I the power, I’d ‘fast pass’ you to heaven after you die right now. Assuredly so.”

She quirked her head at him and sniffled. “Because you love me?”

“Yes, and I honestly didn’t think that was possible. I mean, I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.”

“Even Shakespeare?”

“A fling, though a marvelous one, darling.”

“I…” Chloe raked a hand through her bangs and shook her head. “This is too much.”

He stood. “I understand. I can go. Perhaps you can come by Lux in a few days before happy hour even starts. We could discuss everything then. I see how for a human this has to be digested in stages.”

“No, I mean I can’t do this at all, at least I don’t think so.”

Even though he didn’t need to breathe, Lucifer found himself on the verge of gasping for air. He had to have heard her wrong. Chloe was supposed to…he’d hoped fervently she’d understand. She’d opened the door tonight, after all.

“What?”

She didn’t stand but instead burrowed down deeper into the corner of her sofa. “I can’t. I do care about you, Lucifer, of course I do. But you’re the actual fucking Devil, and I can’t process that.”

“Whatever does that mean?”

“It means that if you were just who I thought you were---even if you talked about being the Devil all the time but it was a trauma-coping mechanism---I could. I’d love to. I just…”

He nodded, and although he hated that side of himself, he let his true face show. Chloe flinched immediately, and he felt like his brother’s sword in his side all over again but somehow _worse_. “You couldn’t learn to love this side of me, could you?”

“I…I don’t know. A big part of me wants to, but it’s…God…Fuck…you know what I mean. It’s heaven and hell and angels and demons. It’s all of it, and I still can’t trust you. I mean, you technically never lied, but you never _showed me_ either.”

Lucifer swallowed hard, even if his throat felt dryer than a desert. He willed his glamour back over him and sighed. “You still think I’m trying to steal your soul?”

Chloe was crying. “I don’t want to think that, but I do. I don’t know what to tell you. I got an offer to shoot a film in Rome a few weeks ago. We weren’t thinking of being so serious then, but even so I wasn’t going to take this spy thriller gig until now.”

“Because you need distance?”

“Yeah. Maybe one day I won’t be terrified, Lucifer. I’m being honest when I say I wish I wasn’t now either, but I don’t know if I can ever be comfortable with you again. I do care about you, but who _I thought you were_. Now, I feel like I don’t know anything!”

“You could ask.”

“Could I?”

“Open bloody book here, darling.”

She whimpered and hugged her knees yet tighter. “You’re the Devil.”

“Yes,” he said, the truth bitter on his tongue, but it had been as it had been for eons and then some. “I…don’t go, please.”

“I have to. I need the space. It’ll be six months. We’ll talk when I’m back, okay? You have always kept your promises, and I can do that much. When I’m done filming, it doesn’t matter how scared I am, I’ll come see you at Lux.”

“You don’t have to. Frankly, Miss Decker, if you’re that terrified of me, I’d rather you don’t.” He shook his head and turned to her front door. “I’m perfectly aware I’m a monster, but I don’t like to have it thrown in my face if I can help it.”

“Lucifer, in six months. I promise.”

He paid her no mind as he started yanking at the locks. He was half through when one sliding mechanism caught, and he pulled harder on it. Then, there was a sharp bite of pain on his fingers, and he flinched as if one of Maze’s blades had poked him. Blinking down at the impossible, Lucifer gaped at the gash in his thumb and forefinger from the lock’s metal.

“What in Dad’s name?”

Chloe had stood up and at least had been brave enough to come to the edge of her den to watch him. “Do you need a towel?”

“No,” he said, his voice still wavering. _This_ should not be happening. It was flatly impossible, but he had already too much to deal with tonight to worry about a flesh wound in her presence. “Just caught me by surprise was all. Fine, then, Chloe. I shall not hold you to your promise if you change your mind. If you’re still terrified of me when you come home, you merely need to leave a message with Patrick at the bar that you can’t make our meeting. Vegas will beckon after that anyway.”

“Lucifer…you lied first.”

His hand froze on the knob as he looked over his shoulder at her. “No, I told you everything. You just didn’t want to see it or _see_ _me_.”

And with that, he stormed off into the night.


	3. My Little Monkey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A what-if Chloe had never quit acting and become more of a B-movie actress and then some...

**3\. My Little Monkey**

It was exhausting.

Chloe Decker loved her career, even if many critics thought she was a terrible actress and more reviews of her work were harsh rather than kind. She adored acting, enjoyed being in goofy B-movies, and she even dug the convention circuit. She’d practically grown up on it with her mother in the summers, and then, after her mom had been killed, and Chloe had switched from more mainstream roles like _Hot Tub High School_ (still her biggest regret and the key reason for the “no nudity” clauses in every contract since) to filling the stilettos as _The Vampire Queen’s Daughter_. Those initial roles, building on her late mom’s legacy, had been easily parlayed into a series of different genre films from alien invasion flicks to werewolf films. It was her bread and butter, and to be fair, you couldn’t find more enthusiastic fans.

But this newer fan convention in Rome had been pushing it, even for her. She’d taken the red eye only thirty-six hours ago from Vancouver, hadn’t slept more than an hour since, and this June was setting temperature shattering records. That mixed with the only so-so air conditioning in the hotel conference rooms left her sweaty, wilted, and just spent. Besides, fucking _Hot Tub_ was a new addition to Netflix Rome, and she’d gotten more than her usual share of creepy fanboys this time around.

She was just over it.

But, of course, she couldn’t afford to ever falter. She’d been an actress for over decades, since her mom had gotten her a job out of kindergarten on one of her shoots. It had been easier back as a child actress or even a teenager. Never easy cause the paparazzi were monsters, but _simpler_ because now even one slip could end up on Instagram or Youtube, and she had to always be on, always be polite.

Even if it were over a hundred degrees in the sweltering room, and Giancarlo had been about to explain to her just how important _that scene_ had been during his teenage years. Dear Christ, if she had a dollar for every time she heard that, she’d be able to buy and sell Jeff Bezos.

At least the line was winding down, and she’d be able to meet her agent and a few friends from the convention out for drinks. Couldn’t come too soon. Still, finally Giancarlo finished recounting in far too much detail about his sexual awakening at fourteen---and what was she supposed to say to that, thanks?---and the next person in line stepped up.

Chloe blinked.

Then, she blinked again.

She’d been doing these conventions for herself well over a decade. There was a certain profile of guy who came to these. Usually a bit shy and polite, and, yes, occasionally an over-sharer, but they almost always wore either jeans and a fandom-centric t-shirt or cosplayed up as a character. In fact, she’d had a few Vampire Kings in line just today. This dude wasn’t like the others. He was tall, lithe, and so devastatingly handsome she assumed one of the other actors for the convention had arrived a day late and wouldn’t be doing panels till tomorrow. Besides, she had never seen a fan come to any convention in a three-piece Armani suit.

She knew her designers well, and what this guy was decked out in would cost ten grand easy.

_What in the world?_

Suddenly embarrassed that her hair was flat, her make up melted half-off her face, and she was wearing an old t-shirt of her own that a dear fan had made her about “how real queens suck blood,” Chloe sat up straighter and forced herself to go into her practiced routine.

And tried to keep her stomach from flip-flopping.

“Hi!”

The stranger smiled and surprised her again by pulled what he wanted her to sign from behind his back. Chloe’s eyes widened, and she whistled at the broadsword prop he’d set down before her.

“Hello, Miss Decker, I’d be rather honored if you signed this.”

British to boot. Seriously, was she just not aware of everyone showing up for this? Was there a new show coming out being promoted last minute on the circuit? Either that or one of the other actors had to be playing a prank on her. There was flatly no way the man before her wasn’t already in the business, right?

The dark-haired stranger frowned at her pause. “I’m sorry. Are props not allowed?” He shrugged and pulled out a money clip in the shape of a pentagram and flicked through first American cash by the hundreds and then to the Italian bills that even Chloe couldn’t keep straight (she had people for that). “A picture would suffice. Heard they’re worth a thousand words, but of you, I bet one is an entire novel’s worth.”

She giggled genuinely at that, horrified when the whole insanity of the day escaped from her and it ended up with a snort. _God, kill her now_. “No, I just…that’s a great replica. It looks just like my mom’s from the first ever _Vampire Queen_. We had these crappy house movers though, so even though she got to keep her favorite of the swords from set, it got lost when we moved out to Malibu.” She sniffled a little.

It was probably weird to get sentimental over something like that, but being the Vampire Queen had meant so much to her mother, and that first film…well, she’d never seen her mom ever happier then when she was making it.

“I never thought I’d see one like it again. Did you make it?” Chloe asked.

The fan quirked his head at her and frowned. “No, I will confess that forging weapons is not necessarily my strong suit. Or at least, it’s been eons since I’ve needed anything like that.” He chuckled warmly, and her traitorous belly flip flopped again. “Dearie me, where are my manners?” The man extended his hand and shook hers gently. “The name’s Lucifer Morningstar, and I didn’t make the blade; I bought it from the black market. It’s an original.”

Chloe’s heart sank at the name. Maybe he wasn’t another actor new to the circuit playing around with her after all. With a name like that, even if he was incredibly hot and rich, he had to be an even bigger fanboy than the usual. Cute and crazy, probably best to avoid. However, she couldn’t help being curious about the blade. What he was saying wasn’t possible.

“I’m really sorry, then. It’s a great facsimile, but it can’t be from the set. There were only three. Mom got one, and it was lost. The stunt coordinator and the director have the other two. But it’s really nice, and I’d be happy to sign it.”

“No, I have it on the best authority, even had my right-hand Mazikeen find a way to authenticate it, much to her displeasure. It’s---”

She ignored him, knowing she’d taken too long even if the day was winding down. There were still a half dozen other paying attendance goers who’d earned their turn. It was silly. It was just a sword. It wasn’t…she just missed her mom was all. Shaking her head, she flipped the sword back so that the bright red cut-glass stone at the hilt (a “ruby” by Hollywood magic standards) faced upwards. Leaning low, she brought her felt tip pen to the area just under the not-a-ruby and was about to sign it.

When she froze.

There was nail polish on the hilt. Bright purple with a few glittery sparkles in it. Chloe knew that mark. She’d made it once at eleven, and her mother had been so mad at Chloe for messing up the prop but had been too nervous about doing worse damage to try removing it with acetone.

Chloe’s hand shook so badly she dropped the pen.

“Miss Decker?”

“I… _this_ is my Mom’s one after all. How did you get it?”

Lucifer (really?) offered her that blinding grin again. “I trade in favors, darling, and I make the best ones. It’s a bit of a story, but I’d be happy to share it with you later on.” His expression dimmed a bit. “You said this one was lost in moving. I didn’t realize your mother only had the one when I tracked this down. Would you like it back? I’m more than happy to trade that for a signed picture instead and an aperitif with you?”

One of convention security was getting antsy. Running over was bad enough, but essentially hitting on the talent was a big no-no. “Hey, Bond, move over.”

Chloe shot Marco a look. “It’s fine. This time, it’s fine, really.” She ran her fingers over the cold metal of the blade. “I would love to.” She forced a perky smile to her face. “That’s a fair deal. I’ll keep the blade, and you can have that drink and any signed photo you’d like. Pick your poison.”

“Lovely,” he said, clapping his hands together with aplomb.

Lucifer, nope still weird to think that, scanned over her assorted stills and headshots and she wanted to groan when he hesitated over a PG-rated shot from that stupid hot tub film (her agent made her keep that as an option; they sold like hot cakes even now) before settling on one of her few non-genre performances. Perhaps an ill-advised attempt to move into serious movies just once, done a couple films after the hot tub debacle and the last real film she’d ever shot since her mom had died a few weeks after its release.

After that, she’d dived head first into being the reboot Vampire Queen and in B-grade shlock.

“This one. I confess, Miss Decker, I’m not familiar with it.”

She picked it up and signed it with a small heart and a “To Lucifer” as a generic greeting. “Yeah, no one saw it. I mean, a few critics actually didn’t hate me as Emma, but it just…yeah, let’s say I never exactly expanded out to British period drama, you know?”

Lucifer laughed again and took the picture from her, his fingers tickling just barely over her own as he slipped the still from her hand. “True, but you’re rather fetching in it, Miss Decker. Trust me, the women of that time had nothing on you. Now, as for the aperitif. There’s a bar a few blocks from here, quiet place, actually, _Il Goccetto_. Shall we say eight?”

She sighed. “Make it ten. I have a feeling my agent is going to ream me out already.”

He nodded. “Sounds splendid.” Reaching down with his free hand, he grabbed her own and kissed the back of it delicately. “Until then, Vampire Queen, it’s been a pleasure.”

**

The bar wasn’t what she expected. It wasn’t even so much a bar as a modest yet popular wine tasting room with a small collection of fresh pastries in the corner, wines arranged from floor to ceiling in ancient racks, and a few tables decked out with clean white linen arranged closely together in the tight space. For a guy with money to burn on black market props buying and a suit some of her exes would have killed for, Lucifer had chosen an oddly normal place.

She liked it.

It was reassuring that he didn’t always lead with his money.

_And where had that thought come from_?

This wasn’t a date, not really. They’d made a deal so that she could get the sword back. After all, Dad would be thrilled when he saw it too. Clearly, Lucifer had been kind enough to part with something he both prized and had paid a tidy sum for. In return, this was just a glass of white wine and an inquiry into how he tracked it down. After all, those movers had “lost” a few other prized items from the house then. She’d never suspected those bastards had tried to sell it on the open market, but she should have. Maybe there were a few other things Lucifer could help her track down, things she could surprise her Dad with for Christmas.

See, reconnaissance.

That was all.

Reconnaissance with a tall, dark, British stranger who made her mouth water. Totally normal. And not at all a date or something she’d put on a lingerie set for just in case. _Right, Decker, I buy that_. Chloe ignored that annoying little voice in her head that both was sure this date wouldn’t go well---her relationships rarely had---and that why would she even want it to because, hot or not, Lucifer Morningstar clearly couldn’t quite tell fantasy from reality.

She was pouring over the menu when the man in question slid into the chair beside her. “Hey! I’m sorry I ended up being early. My agent finished lecturing me ahead of schedule,” Chloe explained in case he assumed there’d been a sudden time change or that he was late.

Lucifer gave her a brisk nod and beckoned for the sommelier. She didn’t follow what he said then, but it sounded like fairly flawless Italian. Soon enough the wine steward was off, and Lucifer was focusing all his attention on her. That was overwhelming. His eyes were so incredibly dark and soulful. With them focused on her like that, Chloe felt like she might drown.

“I chose a red if that’s alright. Also, they have delightful tarts here, a dark chocolate raspberry confection that’s as close to divine as anything I’ve ever come across on earth.”

She swallowed hard. Right, the Lucifer thing. Recovering quickly, Chloe offered him a kind smile. “Sounds nice. Have you lived in Rome long?”

“I don’t live here.”

“Oh, you seem to speak Italian pretty well.”

“I speak everything,” he said, shrugging as if that were a possibility. “I did spend time back in Milan but that was centuries again. Modeled for a few Renaissance painters…well mostly modeled, occasionally it just devolved into shagging before pieces could be completed. Never cared much for Rome for the obvious reasons. Vatican isn’t as much a mortal enemy as a bloviating thorn in my side on occasion. But most of the rest of Italy is lovely.”

She blinked at that and forced her mouth to snap back shut. He was so serious. The entire delivery of his monologue was done without a hint of a laugh or a sly wink. Either he was a really good actor, one who was having a bit of fun at her expense, or he was crazy. Chloe just couldn’t tell which.

“The Renaissance?”

“Well, yes. I don’t get to holiday much, but I managed almost six months in Milan in about 1660. It was splendid. Then my pillock of an older brother shoved me down to Hell, like always. Venice I didn’t see till the turn of the last century. Canals are nice enough, I suppose, but the water is filthy. I can’t catch anything, but its unseemly nevertheless.”

“You’re kidding, right? This is an act or a prank.”

Lucifer frowned back at her. “Oh, you mortals. You never do listen to me, do you? I am the literal, Biblical Devil, Miss Decker.” He sniffed a little at her incredulity and studied his perfectly manicured nails. “Somehow, I had hoped that someone with your career would be more open-minded.”

“Lucifer,” she said, frowning a bit at the name as it tripped off her tongue. “those are still just _movies_. They’re not real. Hell, if anything, I’m an atheist. I mean, Mom was always kind of into crystals and New Age healing. I haven’t even thought about religion since she died.” She shrugged. “If there is a God---”

“Oh, there is.”

“Then, He’s an asshole,” she said.

Lucifer grinned as the sommelier set out their bottle and the tarts. He moved with fluid grace even doing something as mundane as popping open the bottle and pouring a glass for each of them. He handed Chloe hers and raised his own in a toast. “He truly is, darling, and a terrible father. I’ll drink to that.”

She rolled her eyes but humored him. A fan was a fan, after all, and Lucifer’s delusions seemed harmless and somewhat humorous the way he delivered his stories. If it got her information about some of her mom’s prized possessions still out there, it was worth sitting here. Besides, he was awfully easy on the eyes.

“So, your dad is God?”

“Well, God made all the angels, and loathe as I am to admit it, I _was_ one a very long time ago.”

Chloe had only been to church a few times as a small girl with her dad’s parents back when they still visited Ohio for Christmas. But her paternal grandparents had been gone for years. What little she did know about the Devil basically revolved around red horns, a Fall from heaven, and offering Eve an apple. Maybe some stuff about snakes, she wasn’t sure.

“Right, cause you got kicked out.”

“I did indeed. Now you’re getting it.”

She sipped her wine, and it calmed her nerves. “Why are you in Rome if you hate the city?”

“The city is fine, some of its landmarks are not. Honestly, this time around on earth isn’t completely a holiday. Don’t get a bloke wrong, I was able to squeeze in a chance to meet the reigning Vampire Queen for my troubles. However, Mazikeen---”

“Your secretary, right?”

“Oh, it’s best if she never hears you say that. She’s my bodyguard and most trusted demon. Honestly, using her tracking skills to find that sword for me was a one-off.”

“Sure, demon bodyguard, gotcha.” She was so pathetic. Of course, she’d managed to attract both the hottest guy at the convention and yet the one with clearly the biggest mental issues. “You two were here for what else? Lodging a complaint about too many exorcisms lately?”

He laughed and bit into his tart. Chloe tried to ignore the way a smudge of chocolate clung to the corner of his mouth and how desperately she wanted to volunteer to kiss it off. “Don’t be daft. I outlawed those a millennium ago. Messy business, plus it gets my brother Michael involved. Do not relish the Sword of God on my doorstep.”

_Okay then._ “So, besides FantasyCon, what are you here for?”  
  


Lucifer sighed and sipped his wine before replying. “A prophecy that has become peskier of late. It sounds so utterly ridiculous, but it’s been causing the demons to stir, and I like to keep order in that hovel I’m forced to rule. Thus, research was warranted. Not turning up much I’m afraid.”

Chloe considered that. “Well, it’s not like you could just waltz up to the Vatican archives.”

“Oh, I’ve been researching there for a week. Bloody boring place, though not dusty. However, I’ve made precious little progress.”

Chloe blinked and sputtered a bit on her wine. “What?”

“Well, not to put a fine point on it, Miss Decker, but I’m The Prince of Darkness, not a vampire, which, sadly, only exist on celluloid. I can go wherever I please. I abhor churches because my Father’s annoying, but I don’t burst into flame in them. What a silly thought.”

“I…huh,” she said, completely unsure of how to answer that. “I’m sorry you didn’t have any luck, I guess.”

He smiled back at her, and despite all his crazy rantings, Chloe couldn’t help but grin back. Mostly, Lucifer was erratic but charming. She’d honestly met weirder in L.A.

“I wouldn’t exactly say that. I’m having a lovely time right now, just wish I’d had more forward momentum with that prophecy rot. Now, Miss Decker, enough about me. What else do you want to know about that sword I purchased…”

**

She shouldn’t have accepted his invitation back to his hotel. It wasn’t that she couldn’t do it, but her management team would not be pleased with her sneaking around with some fan in Rome. There was always the chance pictures would leak---and then her _dad_ and everyone else on the planet would know she’d had a one night stand with a, well, slightly loopy fan who was convinced he was the Devil---and she had an early morning meet and greet at eight a.m. The last thing she should be doing was going to Lucifer Morningstar’s room.

But he was handsome and charming, and it had been a while since her last anything since she’d broken up with Shaun months ago. Dating for a celebrity, even a B-level one, wasn’t easy when you were always traveling after all.

She was lonely, and for a night, Chloe could certainly do worse. Besides, once he’d mentioned he was staying at the actual St. Regis. Their hotel for the convention, to put it mildly, was less auspicious, and she hadn’t wanted the night to end. What she hadn’t expected but should have from a man who could hunt down obscure artifacts lost even to her family and carried around thousands in a thick pentagram money clip as if it were milk money was that he had the presidential suite.

Chloe whistled the minute she stepped in, and even as she slipped off her heels, which by now were _killing_ her. “This is amazing.”

Lucifer chuckled and gestured to the window. “Has a lovely view of St. Peter’s Basilica if you’re interested in that. I assume you don’t give a toss except for the architecture side since you mentioned that you were spiritual at best?”

She still strode across the room to gaze out the big picture window to the plaza below and the view of the Vatican beyond. She could appreciate the beauty in the building’s design, even if she’d never been Catholic. “The Devil is this close to the Pope, huh, weird.”

“See, you’re beginning to understand.”

Chloe giggled enough to accidentally snort again, and she wished in real life she was as smooth and seductive as her alter ego the Vampire Queen was onscreen. There was probably something disappointing for Lucifer---even if he were a bit crazy---in realizing she wasn’t as collected or badass as the movies (cheesy as they were) made her out to be.

“I really don’t, but I think it’s funny. I mean, if I bought into the schtick.”  
  


Lucifer shrugged and busied himself in the kitchen. “I’d offer a night cap, but you were so very fond of the red wine at the café. I can make some espresso if you’d like, wake you up a bit, or I still have some rolls from this morning. They’re no longer fresh but that and some water would stave off a hangover in the morning, darling.”

“Are you mother henning me?” she asked, a wry smile working its way over her face.

“The term I prefer is ‘molly coddling,” he replied. “But yes, I would feel awful if you suffered a migraine and couldn’t finish out your convention duties. What sort of host would I be?”

“You really are mother henning!” She giggled at that but managed _not_ to snort this time. “I thought the Devil wasn’t supposed to care about his guests or, well, anything.”

Lucifer stilled and the smile froze on his face. “So, you don’t believe me, but you, Vampire Queen, would like to quiz me about what the Devil does and doesn’t do?”

She nodded and sashayed or tried to (she was maybe a little tipsy) to the bedroom part of the suite. “I think I know a lot about what Lucifer Morningstar does, and it’s quite the confusing picture.”

“Do tell,” he said, grabbing a couple of bottles of water and following her to his room.

She grinned as he set the bottles on a bedside table. He was close enough to finally touch him, really enjoy it, and she’d been dying to since he’d taken her arm and led her like a perfect gentleman from the café. Oh, who was she even kidding? She’d been waiting to do _everything_ with him since she’d first heard him speak. If Lucifer ever entered into the entertainment business, he’d kill it. God, that accent alone…

And he’d end up in a far better circuit than she ran in. His commitment to the Devil thing was some expert method.

Chloe sidled up to him and pushed at the lapels of his jacket. Lucifer took the hint and slipped it down over his shoulders. Then she reached up and unbuttoned his shirt, something bright violet that most men wouldn’t have been able to even try, but of course the would-be Prince of Darkness pulled off without a hitch.

Her voice fell to a whisper as she undid each button. “I know that you’re suave, yet you still love terribly geeky movies like mine.”

“They’re a credit to cinema. Even that one you probably loathe.”

  
She narrowed her eyes at “The Devil.” “Trust me, Satan, if you want to get laid, you won’t mention _that_ film ever again.”

“Well, I’ve always been most partial to the Vampire Queen reboots. They’re fun and campy like your mother’s, but you bring such a fierceness underneath. It’s quite admirable.”

She chuckled. “You and most fanboys I meet.” He was naked from the waist up now, and she should do him a similar courtesy and undo her wrap dress, but she wasn’t ready yet. Chloe licked her lips and ran her hands over the planes of his abs, over the dips the high point of his hips that just peaked from under his belt line. “You’re so warm.”

“Part of being readied to live in a fiery pit of despair for most of time, love.”

She shook her head. Well, she had met even more _annoying_ method actors. Lucifer really was good. She had no idea why he didn’t just try acting for real. “Of course, well, you’re also a gentleman.”

He arched an eyebrow at her and pressed his hips against her stomach, and she could feel his hardness there. “I’m interested and surely not celibate, darling.”

“But you fuss over a hangover I won’t have cause I’m pretty good at this by now at twenty-seven. It’s oddly sweet, maybe old-fashioned.” She highlighted her point by running her hands up his shoulders. She wasn’t the shortest of women, but Lucifer was tall, towered over even her, especially now that she was flat footed. Chloe made a show of mewling just a little. “Could you bend down for me? You’re like trying to climb a tree.”

He chuckled at that, a warm throaty sound as smooth as fine liquor. “That’s a way to put it. Is that what we’re planning, are we?”

“Maybe,” she said, stepping back from him just long enough to pulled the knot out of the belt on her dress and let it fall to the floor. Chloe made short look of stepping out of her panties and unclasping her bra. Normally she might have made a show of undressing for a guy as hot as he was, but it had been too long, and she’d been flirting all night. “What do you want, Lucifer?”

And it did feel a little like one of her dumber movies to say something like that out loud.

He smirked at her and reaching out, traced large hands over her breasts. “You said something about climbing me like a tree, I believe?”

She grinned. “Exactly.”

Things moved quickly after that and his arms were around her and helping heft her to his waist. She wrapped her legs around him, and his lips were on hers, warm and wanting, his tongue more than eager to plumb the depths of her mouth. He was strong, that much was obvious, because he held her up and strode to the nearest expanse of wall as if it were nothing, as if she weighed no more than a feather. Lucifer held her easily with one hand under a cheek of her ass as he undid his zipper in record time and she felt the slick tip of him against her folds.

“Fuck,” he cursed.

She had to chuckle at that even as he stilled against her, and it was the _last_ thing she wanted.

“What?”

“Of all things…I honestly did come to Rome for a research trip. I am, perhaps, under packed.” He arched his hips just a bit and teased her entrance until she realized what she meant.

“I’m on the pill,” she blurted out. Because of course she was, and if they stopped this now, she would die from need. “Please, I’m serious. If you put me down now, I’ll probably murder you.”

He chuckled and eased into her, inch by promising inch. Chloe hissed at the heavy girth of him inside. “Run me through with a broadsword then?”

“I know where I have one.”

Lucifer flexed his hips again and she moaned a little at the pleasure against her g-spot. “I think you’re the one impaled.”

She giggle-snorted again and didn’t even care. “You’re the biggest nerd.”

“But you seem to rather enjoy it, Vampire Queen.”

“I do. Now fuck me, Lucifer.”

And she was lost then, in the power of his arms wrapped around her, the smell of his expensive cologne, something from YSL if she weren’t mistaken, and the scratch of his stubbled against her cheek as he kissed her like a man who hadn’t been intimate with anyone in years. Something she seriously doubted as a person with working eyeballs. Still, it was flattering how much attention he paid to her. How every thrust of her hips drove her wild, until he pushed far enough to hit her g-spot just right, and she came, exploding into incoherence around him and not quite really aware of everything until she managed on wobbly legs to make it to bed.

Lucifer had gone to the bathroom to clean up and brought her a towel and then insistently---fussily---handed her a bottle of water. “Drink, Vampire Queen, you’ll feel better about it in the morning.”

“Of course, Satan,” she said, winking at him.

Definitely one of her weirder nights, but it had been fun too. She was sorry to see it end. “I…I’ll have to be gone by five to make it back to the hotel to get ready for everything. I’m so sorry I can’t stay.”

Lucifer nodded and kissed the top of her head. “I’d give you my number, but after I finish here in Rome, I won’t be on holiday any longer. There isn’t a great mobile signal in Hell.”

Chloe laughed until she almost cried. “It figures.”

“Does it?”

“Yeah, only I’d find the perfect guy, and he’d be convinced he’s the Devil.”

Lucifer kissed her again, and she could feel _improbably_ that he was already ready to go again if she had the energy. “It’s because I am the Devil, love, but humans rarely believe it. However, it was lovely to have met you for real, Chloe Decker, and I wish you and your career the best. Now, just get some rest and I’ll make sure you’re properly fed before you leave.”

“You really do mother hen.”

“It’s molly coddle, Chloe, get it right.” He said, before drifting to sleep beside her.

**

Chloe had, much as she hated it, scarfed down a few croissants quickly from the room service Lucifer had ordered and redressed. Part of her had wanted to give him her card, but he wasn’t quite all there, or at the very best, Lucifer was too method to deal with. Either way it was more complications than her busy working actress life could take. So it was just one of those days, those rare perfect days and an equally crazy night that would be fun to look back on when she was old and white-haired in a nursing home someday.

Soon enough, Chloe had gotten back to the crazy rhythm of her life, the hectic pace of filming some _Terminator_ -wannabe series in Toronto, and of trying to forget all about Lucifer Morningstar, so-called Devil.

Then, the vomiting had started. So intense that she thought she’d developed food poisoning from a questionable sushi restaurant in the city. Soon, it had turned out that her stomach problems were of a different variety. The day the set doctor told her, she’d broken down in tears. Her contract had a clause about pregnancy anyway and one about weight gain, and she had figured it easy to comply with because she was always careful and hadn’t really been seeing anyone in months.

Well, just one person for a night, and apparently, her birth control hadn’t been exactly fool proof.

And she wished it had been because the series was a dumb one, but it was good, stable series work, and it required her to travel less than she had in years. There were other _options_ for her dilemma, but Chloe just couldn’t do it. Her family was pathetically small as it was, just her and her father, and at the end of the day, she couldn’t give up her child. So, she’d finished filming out the season, even though her vomiting never got better, and by the final episode, crippling migraines were plaguing her daily. After that, she went home to Los Angeles and moved in with her father, who cared of her for a while as her health deteriorated.

He was working tonight in fact, still keeping up all the lieutenant duties his precinct had saddled him with while his daughter and soon-to-be-granddaughter rested at home. Even if Chloe was having a relatively good day with no headaches and a fierce craving to actually eat for once, she wasn’t enjoying pregnancy. Being almost seven months was cumbersome, and she never thought she’d miss being able to even _see_ her feet.

However, her dad---bless him---had picked up her unusual request and she was now scarfing down on a mix of caviar, which had never really been her thing before, and eel rolls. It should be gross, especially since her third craving of the day was a strawberry milkshake she’d ordered out from a shake shop not far from her dad’s place.

It was great though, hit the spot. God, she couldn’t wait till the delivery, and things would go back to at least somewhat more normal again.

Chloe was sacked out on the couch, intermittently sipping on the shake and eating her second (okay _third_ ) can of caviar while half-dozing in front of some teen romcom on Netflix. One of the ones made for the service that was way better than the shlock she’d been in almost seven years ago. Although, to be fair, the damn service also kept asking her if she’d _like_ to see _Hot Tub High School_ based on the rest of her browsing history.

She was going to take a big pass on that.

Sighing, she finally set her fish eggs aside, and stroked at her ample belly. “You, Trixie, are making a complete mess of me.”

Once she found out she was pregnant, she’d started a running dialogue to her kid. It was a little weird at first talking to someone who wasn’t quite there out loud, but she’d also spoken on and off to her mom after she’d lost her, and now she figured it was good for the baby to get used to her voice. After all, it was so important that Trixie bond with her and Dad too, since her actual dad had no chance of being in the picture.

Hell, there was no way she could even find him because she’d tried Googling and was running into some more desperate ideas to find him as well. But he didn’t seem to exist, or he was great at covering his tracks.

  
Either way, Chloe was fucked and so not in the good way.

Trixie kicked and it was a sharp blow, something that made her take in a pained breath. She figured most fetuses kicked hard, but Trixie was in Mia Hamm, going to be a World Cup Soccer Player territory.

She rubbed her side again. “You’re really something, already. I can’t sleep, my head hurts, I think you’re kicking a hole through my kidney…when I _do eat_ , it’s something totally gross, and I was never into calamari before. I…” she trailed off for a moment before re-centering her thoughts. “But then I look at all the sonograms and think about how excited Dad’s been prepping the nursery and all the girly stuff we can do some day…the things I haven’t been able to do since Mom died, okay, not that I did a ton of it before or got into pageant stuff, just the acting…but it’ll be nice, Trix. And it’ll be okay that it’s just the three of us, I really promise.”

There, of course, wasn’t an answer, but Chloe decided to take the fluttering in her stomach and the decreased kicks as a good thing.

Setting her drink down, she stroked her belly on both sides and sighed. “Yeah, Monkey, we’ll get through this. I’m just…I’m sorry you’ll never meet your dad. He’s definitely interesting, and I’m a moron, but I promise me and grandpa already love you lots.”

Chloe sighed and flipped for through the menu for another movie. Her dad wouldn’t be home for hours, and she was going to take advantage of Trixie resting to doze off hardcore to _Can’t Hardly Wait_.

**

By the eighth month, she’d been forced onto bed rest in a private clinic. Her job was cheesy and her movies usually crappy, but she’d saved enough to have the funds to get the best specialist for all of this. A blessing because the pregnancy was not an easy one. Between her constant nausea and trouble keeping food down, the migraines that sometimes left her too weak to walk, and the crippling cramps that felt like her back was in a vice (those were newer, only over the final month at least), Chloe was a mess.

Her father had begged her repeatedly for the father’s name. She hadn’t given it because her dad would think she was insane. Chloe Decker had always been so responsible, first because her mom was kind of flakey even when she was growing up, and then because in his grief, Dad had needed someone to look after him. There was no way to explain to John Decker that his normally level-headed daughter had been so irresponsible as to sleep with---no get pregnant by---a man who kept insisting he was the Devil.

Besides, she’d tried finding him too. She’d worked every angle and possible contact she had, talked to an old friend of hers, who after deciding to leave acting, ended up working for the FBI of all things. No dice.

Lucifer Morningstar didn’t exist.

Except he did, and she was ready to give birth to his kid any day.

Chloe lay in bed, half asleep and half focused on the _Full House_ reruns playing on her TV. She’d dilated a few centimeters but wasn’t even close yet. She couldn’t even tell if she was having contractions on her own because, honestly, the last month had been so full of pain that it all felt like one big twist of muscles and nerves for far too long. Her dad opened the door and slid down into the chair beside her. Despite everything, especially the strain the pregnancy had put on their relationship, there was no more welcome sight to her than her dad.

He smiled broadly at her, even if the expression didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Monkey, how are you feeling?”

“Terrible,” she croaked.

Her dad sighed and reaching out, stroked her hair back from her forehead. “Not much longer, Monkey.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Baby…I’m upset because this shouldn’t be happening to you. I’ve felt so impotent with how sick you’ve been and how little the doctors have been able to do to fix it. I just want you to get better. I also wish you’d tell me who did this so I can ring his neck, introduce him to my service revolver, and make him give you all the child support in one lump sum check.”

“Dad!”

Her father sighed again and kissed her temple. “Chloe, I just want you to feel better. When the baby---”

“Beatrice Penelope,” she said.

Her father always smiled at that, ever since Chloe had come up with the name back in the second trimester. The pregnancy was a terrible process, but giving even a small bit of a namesake to her mother…that much felt right, felt _good_.

“Yes, well, when little Trixie gets here, things should get easier. You won’t be sick anymore, and I…the father should still be able to support you both.”

“Dad, I have enough money, and Mom’s estate and residuals provide extra besides.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “So, the service revolver option?”

“Still gonna pass on that one, Dad.”

He shook his head and pulled up the little bag he’d been carrying on his lap. “I brought you and Trixie a present.”

“Ooh, can you open it for me,” she said, taking a breath from the cannulas in her nose. “It’s a little hard right now.”

Her father’s smile faltered for just a moment, and Chloe hated herself for that. Hated herself for being reckless with her health and for scaring him so much. The doctors kept saying that despite everything, all her mystery complications, they thought she’d do much better once Trixie was delivered. It was why they’d scheduled the Caesarian for tomorrow, after two days stuck at three centimeters. If the baby were out of her, she’d get better. She had to. She couldn’t leave her dad alone, not after everything with Mom.

She wouldn’t leave Trixie without a mother either, not if she could help it. It had been crushing enough to suffer through her mother’s murder at nineteen. Trixie… _no_ , she’d be better as soon as she was no longer pregnant. Simple as that.

Reaching out, she squeezed her father’s hand weakly. “Come on, none of that. I want to see my present.”

Her dad sniffled a little but opened the bag and pulled out the cutest little stuffed monkey she’d ever seen. It was a girl with pink fur and dressed in a princess costume, complete with a crown on its head. Okay, it was also utterly ridiculous, but she loved it all the same.

“For my little Monkey’s Little Monkey.”

She set her palm flat on her belly, which had never gotten big, not with how little she’d managed to keep down day to day. “Maybe Trixie can get a new nickname. She’s her own person, after all. So more like a little monkey for a little to be determined.”

Her father chuckled and squeezed the monkey tightly to his chest. “Alright then sweetie. You drive a hard bargain.”  
  


“I do,” she said. “So, I was able to at least Google around on my phone. I’m half out of it but TBS is doing a marathon of some of Mom’s old stuff in about an hour. You can watch that, and I’ll just pass out a bit.”

He stroked her shoulder. “You rest, Monkey. You’re doing such a good job.” She nodded and closed her eyes, almost asleep but not quite when her dad added, “I am going to find the bastard who did this to you, and he’ll be lucky if some bullets are all he gets.”

**

She was put under for the Caesarian, not just with a local anesthetic but out all the way. It was the first relief from the crushing pain she’d had since the migraines started. In fact, when she finally woke up back in her room, everything felt _amazing_ because she’d delivered and whatever changes in her hormones that had been driving her body insane were already receding. Blinking awake, Chloe sat up and pulled the cannulas from her nostrils and, greedily, reached to the tray by her bed and guzzled down half a pitcher of water.

Her room was quiet.

Too quiet. It was probably because she’d been so sick. They must have moved Trixie to the nursery right away, probably had a nurse feeding her. After all, there was no tiny incubator in her room. But that didn’t explain where her dad or the doctors were. Shouldn’t they be around?

“Dad?”

No answer.

_Was something wrong with Trixie? Had she…_

No, Chloe would not think like that, not without proof. Standing up on shaky legs and pulling her hospital gown tighter around her, Chloe made it over to her dresser where she fumbled with her phone until she dialed her father. It rang through four times before he picked up.

When he spoke, there was a note of utter terror in his voice that she’d never heard before. He was a police lieutenant, for Christ sakes, nothing scared him. “Monkey! How are you?”

“Dad? Dad where’s the baby? What’s wrong?”

Her father took in a sharp breath on the other end, and Chloe’s heart started to crack the same way it had the day he told her about her mom. “Monkey, the baby is stable.”

“Where are you?”

“I was visiting her at the NICU, but I’ve been detained.”

“What? What does that even mean? Is Trixie dying? I…” she yanked the lines connecting her to the IV drip out of her arms and rushed out of the door. Chloe could find the NICU. She’d already walked past the main nursery at the other end of the floor. She had a hunch the NICU side was down to the far left of her room. “Dad, what is going on?”

“Stop!” her dad shouted and then there was gun shots and the line went dead.

Chloe’s heart was in her throat as she hurried down the hallway. The doctors and nurses knocked unconscious on the floor did nothing to alleviate her fears. How the Hell had she had the bad luck to have given birth after everything in a hospital under siege? She rounded the corner, her head spinning and found the large sign that said “NICU” on it. Bursting through the door, she froze at the scene before her.

All the medical staff there was also knocked out---God, please let them just be knocked out---and her Dad stood, hovering over Trixie’s incubator, with his nine mil drawn while he was actively trying to reload the clip. She arched her neck and stared in utter shock and confusion at the far side of the room. There crouched a woman with dark skin and two wickedly curved blades in her hands.

She had powder burns on her chest but and at least one bullet hole torn through her shirt, but she wasn’t bleeding. _How_ wasn’t she bleeding?

“What the Hell is going on?” Chloe demanded, furious at all of this. She was half naked in a hospital gown, hadn’t felt decent or strong in months, and had no weapons on her but this was her dad and her kid, and this crazy intruder couldn’t have them. She turned and glared at the woman and her knives. “What the fuck are you doing?”

The woman stood and regarded Chloe with more condescension than should be humanly possible. “I’ve tracked down something that doesn’t belong to you.”

Chloe was across the room in an instant, standing between her daughter and her dad and the crazy woman with the blades. “She’s my daughter and what mental hospital did you break out of?”

“The child isn’t supposed to be here. I don’t want it in Hell, but I need to find a place to hide it far from my boss before Amenadiel steals it.”

Chloe had no idea what the woman was rambling about and then…wait, Hell?

“She’s not going anywhere,” her father said, gun reloaded and aimed for at the intruder’s heart.

The woman rolled her eyes. “Please, humans and their guns have never scared me. It’s better this way. How could you possibly take care of a child like this?”

“Like what?” Chloe demanded. “I haven’t even met her, and you can’t have her. You move, and Dad will shoot you.”

The woman yawned. “Been there, done that. Really ruined my favorite pair of leather pants. Chloe Decker and John Decker, it would be best if you moved. I don’t care if humans die, but it’s less messy to just knock them out, less of a chance my boss notices I ran wild up here.”

Chloe shook her head and backed up to the opposite side of the incubator from her father. For the first time, she glanced down and looked at her daughter---at her tiny body and miniscule fingers, at her dark head of hair, and the little monkey-themed onesie she was wearing. She was breathing so strong and didn’t have tubes in her. Why on earth was she even in the NICU? Then, Trixie, apparently finally aware of all the chaos around her, opened her eyes and started to wail.

Chloe’s first instinct was to pick her child up, but she froze in place when she noticed her daughter’s eyes, at the licks of red flame that seemed to dance in them.

Hell, boss, those eyes…

“You’re Mazikeen,” Chloe said, pulling the name from a dinner nine months ago to the surface. “I…you work for Lucifer Morningstar.”

“Yes, and I really don’t want him to know I’m here or that, somehow, he set this dumbass prophecy in motion because of course he did. Look, you don’t want to deal with the antichrist; I don’t want to deal with it either. Lucifer has fuck all idea how to be a parent and Daddy issues for centuries, seriously. Let me take it, you go fuck a normal bland human, start over in nine months, okay?” Mazikeen didn’t move forward, but she did twirl one wickedly sharp blade in her right hand. “Seriously, mortals, I’m being nice because this is way above your pay grade.”

Her father shook beside the incubator a little but never dropped his aim. “Get the fuck out of here. You’ll take my granddaughter over my dead body.”  
  


Mazikeen rolled her eyes and stepped forward, recoiling only slightly as two slugs slammed into her shoulder. “I offered you another way, but so be it. I don’t have any time left before Lucifer or Amenadiel or _both_ get here.”

The demon---that’s what Lucifer had called her and her daughter had red eyes and oh fuck he hadn’t been delusional at all---rushed forward and Chloe pulled her daughter to her chest and held her tight, even as her father emptied a clip uselessly at the menace before them.

But just as Mazikeen reached out for her child, just as she felt the fevered grasp of the demon’s hand on her wrist, something large and fast barreled through the far wall of the room, rendering it to rubble. Chloe turned, blinked, and decided her life had gone from impossible to flat out Crazy Town when she spied Lucifer before her, brushing brick dust off his suit and shaking out his great white wings.

The actual fuck?

Chloe’s brain sputtered at the sigh, but her father, who’d never been religious either, fell to his knees and started to cross himself and pray. She held Trixie close to her chest, and only then noticed that her daughter had stopped crying and was cooing gently against her.

Looking down, Chloe pushed the dark ruffles of hair from Trixie’s face and spied the now perfectly normal, soulful, and _familiar_ brown eyes blinking back at her. “You can’t have her.”

Lucifer rolled his shoulders and his wings disappeared. Her dad was still in some religious stupor on the floor muttering prayers to himself, but Mazikeen had stopped touching her. In fact, the demon had stepped back from the incubator and was staring back at Lucifer with her head hung low.

“Lucifer, I can explain.”

When he spoke, his voice and accent were as sensual as she remembered them, but his tone was a low and menacing. “Mazikeen, how long have you known?”

Chloe looked between them both and waited for an answer too.

The demon looked him in the eyes and holstered her knives. “A few months now. I caught the scent. I thought I was going crazy at first, but last month I was sure, and I had to track it down.”

Lucifer’s eyes grew impossibly red and the shade matched too exactly what Trixie’s had done. “And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“A child is a distraction, my king, and---”

Lucifer shouted then, and his eyes flashed so brightly that Chloe had to look away. “Enough. You deceived me, Mazikeen.”

“I protect you, even from yourself,” she countered. “The prophecy is starting, and if we just get rid of it now, the prophecy doesn’t have to change anything.”

“ _Her_ ,” Lucifer collected, his voice like ice and his eyes a simmering collection of flames. “Her, not it. Were you going to kill her, Maze? Would you what? Have taken her to the ends of the Arctic and left her to freeze to death? Give us a hint now.”

“I hadn’t thought that far ahead. If I didn’t take it and find a way to at least hide it, you know Amenadiel would take it instead to the Silver City for judgment. Do you want that?”

“I want choice. You know what happens when that is denied to me, Mazikeen. Go!”

“Lucifer, I was just trying---”

“No,” he said, and something _flickered_ , and for a moment, Chloe thought his face had changed, that it had become nothing more than a mass of scars and burns, but that had to be her imagination, didn’t it? “You lied to me, _betrayed me_. Return home and be glad I don’t do worse. My child is mine to deal with, and if the Host come, they’ll learn that too.”

Mazikeen opened her mouth to say something else but, seeming to think about of it, slammed her mouth shut, turned, and left the room.

Lucifer let out a sigh and frowned at the mess he and the demon had both left in their wake.

“Dearie me, this is quite the pickle, isn’t it?” He brushed more of the brick dust from his suit and straightened his pocket square. “First, let me remedy an unfortunate mistake.”

Chloe backed up and pulled Trixie as tightly to her body as she dared. “Don’t you hurt her!”

Lucifer froze and something like pain flashed across his face, but that couldn’t be possible because he was the Devil, and the Devil didn’t get upset, did he? “Miss Decker… _Chloe_ , I would never. I have never been fond of children---sticky, tiresome burdens at best---but I would never harm one, let alone my own. It is beneath me.”

“You’re Satan.”

“Yes, well, I told you that, and even Satan has his standards.” He said, his tone snotty. “I meant your father, Chloe. He needs help. The divine, which technically my wings still are, has quite the effect on you humans.” Lucifer frowned at that and regarded her. “Apparently not you, but perhaps that’s a side effect of having had an infernal passenger for the last nine months. However, I hardly wish to leave you father trapped in religious ecstasy. That’s rather rude of me.”

“Are you even for real?” she asked, finding it impossible to keep her remarks to herself.

Lucifer offered her a sly smile. “I would say so. That tiny bundle of Hellish joy didn’t come from just anywhere, did she?” He turned and focused his attention on her father. “Beg pardon, I’m a bit rusty with this trick, haven’t done it since before the Fall, but necessity is the mother of invention and all that.”

Her father was still mumbling to himself and as Lucifer grew close, her dad bowed down and touched Lucifer’s shoe. “I’m not worthy.”

“Yes, quite,” Lucifer said. “John Decker, please look at me.”

Her father complied and eyed the Devil, the actual, literal Biblical Devil. Shit, she’d had sex with the Devil. No, damn it and damn her, she’d just _had his kid_. Chloe Decker was so screwed.

Her dad, however, still did as Lucifer asked. “Yes, tell me what to do!”

Lucifer shook his head. “Blasted wings, more trouble than they’re worth sometimes.” He took a deep breath and focused solely on her father. “John Decker, be at peace. You will rest now, and you will wake up and not remember my wings.”

“At peace?” her dad echoed.

Lucifer nodded and set his hand on her father’s head. “Yes, John Decker. Rest now, and all will be better in the morning.”  
  


And just like that, her father yawned and passed out on the floor.

Chloe shuddered and didn’t dare breathe till she was sure her father was just asleep and not dead. “I…what did you do?”

“Well, first, wasn’t sure I could so I’d say well done me. Second, angels---even the real ones---are a fearsome sight for humans to behold. Literal awe of God and all that. ‘Be at peace’ helps calm the minds who have spied the holy without permission.”

“You’re the Devil so you’re not---”

He shrugged. “Most of me is far from holy, but the wings still tend to rot human minds. However, your father should be fine with that bit of Command and some rest.” He hesitated, slipped his hands into his pants pockets, and then rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Miss Decker---”

“Oh, we have the antichrist together. I guess you can call me ‘Chloe,’ now.”

“Yes, lovely,” he said, and suddenly those piercing, though at least human, brown eyes could no longer meet her gaze. Was he nervous? Wait, how could she make the Devil nervous? “Miss Decker… _Chloe_ , I had no idea, I assure you. I didn’t know I could. Frankly, I can’t. No angel or Fallen can.”

She rocked Trixie, who was stirring a little, against her chest. “Well, you did.”

“Yes, well, if I’d known, I’d never have left. And I did not know Mazikeen was hunting for you. I’m sorry about all of this trouble.” He reached out his arms wide and stared down at her. “However, Mazikeen isn’t completely wrong. She was merely wrong about hiding the child _from me_.”

“What?”

“Chloe, you don’t want her, do you?”

She looked down at her child, at the soft brown eyes staring back at her with perfect trust and forced the fear she still felt lingering in her at Trixie’s _other eyes_ away. “I carried her. I love her, and you can’t take her.”

“Well, you can’t keep her either. You’re two mortals, and you truly have no idea what to do with the antichrist. Also, good one, Dad. How funny.”

Chloe swallowed hard at that title applied to her child. “Do you know what to do with her?”

Lucifer faltered for a moment and did not speak. “Well, no, this has never happened before and, believe me, with my track record it bloody well should have.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, but she cannot stay only with you two. You have no idea how to deal with preternatural needs, and my siblings will come for her. Father might have created this prophecy and all its rot long ago, but the Host will be furious. I can just see Remy sharpening her knives now.”  
  


Chloe shuddered and held Trixie closer. “I…are the Host other demons?”

“Far worse, angels.”

“But angels are good.”

Lucifer sighed theatrically. “And this is why you are woefully unqualified to care for her. Angels are the bloody worst. Far bigger bastards than I could ever be. Don’t be difficult, darling, hand over the child…what’s her name again?”

“Trixie.”

He laughed. “Good one, that’s a hooker’s name. No, seriously, what’s the child’s actual moniker?”

“It _is_ Trixie. Beatrice Penelope Decker.”

Lucifer’s mouth quirked to the side as he considered that. “Well, Penelope Morningstar is workable, one supposes. I would never call the child ‘Trixie.’ How terrible.”

Chloe shook her head. “You can’t have her.”

“We just established that some very large, very pissed off angels are going to be here soon with Azrael’s blade and Dad knows what else to do away with the child. You can’t fight them. Honestly, I can’t take them all.”

“You’ll take her to Hell?” Chloe asked and her heart broke. No, not her child.

“It’s safest there. Granted, no place for a child, even the Princess of Hell, but my siblings cannot pass through the gates.”

Chloe narrowed her eyes back at him. “Well, do you know how to take care of human children?”

“She’s half devil to be fair.”

“Do you know anything about kids at all?”

“You sometimes give them milk and then there are the nappies and no, not really. I was hoping to pull a nanny out of a Hell loop if possible. I’m sure we’ve got some topnotch au pairs somewhere; they tend to have guilt issues over shagging the husbands of the household.”

“No.”  
  


Lucifer pinched the bridge of his nose. “Amenadiel and Remiel and probably even Michael will be here very soon if Mazikeen could find you. So, what do you suggest? We can’t stay here.”

“You can’t take a baby---and you won’t take _mine_ \---to Hell.”

“Yes, then what do we do?”

Chloe bit her lip and quietly set Trixie back in the incubator. Stepping close to him, she reached out and offered her hand. “I want to make a deal. It’s what you do, isn’t it?”

“I enjoy a good favor, but now is _not_ the time, Miss Decker.”

“Yeah, it is, cause honestly you owe me. I was really fucking sick for the last six months. My tab just came due, Buddy, so I get to name my terms.”

Lucifer looked out at the slivers of sky through the hole in the wall. Nothing was there, yet, but Chloe believed him when he said angels would be coming soon enough. “Fine, speak fast.”

“My father and I come with you. You’re right. I don’t know anything about demons and the Devil and angels, and I really don’t want to know what all else. But you, Lucifer, know jack shit about babies.”

“Yes, that’s rather true.”

“Then, we go on the run all four of us. Wherever you go, it’s _on earth only_ , and Dad and I come along. That’s the deal.”

“I don’t need permission of a mortal to take _my_ child.”

Chloe stepped closer until she was practically jamming the fingertips of her outstretched hand into his chest. “ _Our_ child, and she’ll do better if we work together. I can’t help with Devil problems, but you wouldn’t know formula from a margarita mix.”

He rolled his eyes. “I…that’s true, but I’m a quick study.”

“Do you want to raise her in Hell, Lucifer? You said you hated it and it was why you took so many vacations.”

The Devil before her regarded her with a hard expression but finally softened. “I do not. Hell is assuredly no place for a child, but if my siblings find her, they will most likely snuff her from existence. She is not supposed to be.”  
  


“But she is,” Chloe continued. “And we’re her parents, which fucking weird, but okay. We play the ball where it lies. She needs _both_ of us, and I need my dad with me. So, that’s the deal, I carried her and almost died doing it, so you _owe_ me. And you honestly owe her better than to raise her in a fiery pit of despair.”

Lucifer sighed. “Very well, Chloe. I’ve a home in Shanghai that should be good for a few weeks, as far from Los Angeles as we can get, and we’ll start planning how to hide her better. If you give us a mo, I’ll get you and her settled there first and fly back to retrieve your father.”

“Ahem, make it official.”

“You drive a hard bargain, don’t you, Miss Decker?”

She nodded. “You have no idea.”

He shook her hand then, his hand as warm and enticing as she remembered it. Then, he dropped it and inched to the incubator. Lucifer hesitated over it. “I…I don’t know a sodding thing about infants.”

“Yes, I noticed.”

“May I?”  
  


Chloe had had it. Her mind finally snapped from all the day’s bullshit. The Devil---the one who’d knocked her up, torn through a brick wall like it was paper, and cowed a demon---was asking her, Little Old Chloe Decker, for permission to do something.

Seriously, what the fuck?

“Chloe?”

“Yes,” she said, standing back up and brushing the tears from her eyes. She was so scared that if she started screaming or crying now, she’d never stop. Laughing was all she had left. “Please, I think she’d like it.”

Lucifer bent lower and picked Trixie up. It was an awkward hold, and he looked more like he was trying to hold a football than cradle a child. At least he hadn’t dropped her. “Hello there, child. This is…I’m sorry this happened, but I don’t abandon my responsibilities unlike like your arsehole of a grandfather.”

Chloe let out another burst of hysterical giggles when it clicked for her that Trixie’s grandfather was literally God, capital “G.”

“Are you alright, Miss Decker?”

“‘Chloe’s’ really fine to call me,” she said. “Also, no. Nope, no way, no how. God’s my in-law, kind of. That’s messed up.”

“Well, Dad and I haven’t talked for eons so you might miss out on Him, one hopes.”

Nope. When he put it that way, it just made things worse, and her brain twist up into bigger knots.

“Well, hello, beautiful,” he cooed, still awkwardly rocking her. Lucifer rearranged Trixie in his arms so that he could stroke her face. Chloe gasped when Trixie’s eyes flashed red and stayed that way. “Oh, look at that, I think she recognizes me, Chloe.”

She wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing yet, but this whole FUBAR’ed situation still beat out murderous angels with killer blades. She hoped.

Lucifer continued talking. “Yes, hello there, child. I…” he stroked her cheek one last time and smiled at those red, glittering eyes. “Dad’s here now, my little antichrist.” Shaking his head, he schooled his features back to a more neutral look and handed the baby to her. “Hold her tight, please. I promise I won’t drop either of you, but all the same, I’d feel better if you also clutched her too.”

Chloe took Trixie in her arms and tried not to freak out because this was her child, and she loved her, but there were still hellfire eyes staring back at her. It was…unsettling.

Lucifer scooped her up in his arms, there was a rush of air, and his wings were back, beautiful white feathers that shone brighter than the sun greeting her. She wasn’t about to bliss out and pray to him---like really?---but they were gorgeous, and it was hard to believe he was actually Satan like that.

“Now, Miss…Chloe, hold on tight to _our_ little antichrist, would you?”

“We are _not_ calling her that.”

“Well you might not be, but _I_ will.”

With that, they descended into bickering about nicknames and this odd arrangement of theirs even as Lucifer took flight. Before she closed her eyes against the onslaught of wind, Chloe had one annoying thought:

_Should have just gone with my little monkey, way better than my little antichrist._


	4. In Nomine Patris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe's a nun. Also this is explicit and has sex in it.

**4\. In Nomine Patris**

“You’re new,” Chloe said, sitting down with _Our Lady of Sorrow_ ’s most recent and motivated soup kitchen volunteer.

The woman was pretty, and Chloe wondered if she’d been an actress before settling for a more mundane life. After all, being just a volunteer wasn’t as odd as having once been the “It Girl” of the early 2000s (kind of and oh thank you _Hot Tub High School_ ) but then giving it all up to become a nun.

The woman looked about anxiously, peering at the corners as if someone might jump out at any moment but finally seemed to settle down before nodding at Chloe. “Yeah, I’m, uh, Sammy, and I just wanted to help.”

Chloe arched an eyebrow at the newcomer and adjusted her habit a bit. It always seemed too tight. “Are you alright? I’m good friends with this priest, Father Frank, a few blocks over, and he has an in with a shelter for domestic abuse survivors. You seem jumpy, and I was worried.”

“Sammy” shook her head and glanced down at her watch. Chloe’s eyes went wide when she noticed it had to be a Rolex. Scratch her earlier suspicions, this girl at the very least had been famous once, even if the rest of her wardrobe with her plain sweater and slightly faded jeans wouldn’t indicate that.

“No, it’s just…honestly, this sounds nuts, but I didn’t want the paparazzi to know? I like coming here, and I have been for a few weeks now.”

“I’ve noticed, and we appreciate the help.”

“I just…it feels simpler helping other people for once. However, I also am super freaked out some stray tabloid hack is gonna figure out and have a field day.”

Chloe chuckled. “I know all about that.”

The girl quirked her head at her. “With all due respect, Sister, I don’t think that’s possible.”

“I wasn’t born a nun, you know, and it _is_ L.A. I have run into some completely dickish paps before.”

Sammy’s eyes grew wide. “Can nuns swear?”

“I don’t think ‘dick’ is too bad, and it’s pretty accurate,” Chloe spit out, deciding not to dig too deep into her own memories of that asshole and his money shot at her dad’s own funeral. “Gave one a great right hook once, but I haven’t been an actress in a very long time.”  
  


And God, how fifteen years really flew by.

“And did leaving fame make you happy?”

“I was never that famous,” Chloe admitted. “I had a lot of steady TV work as a kid, and then this one movie…I might have been famous after that, but things changed, and I quit. I just needed the quiet and,” she added, pulling out her rosary. “He gave me peace, you know?”

“I’m not actually Catholic.” The girl shrugged. “If anything, I guess I’m just more spiritual, but I don’t think about it much.”

“No one seems to until its thrust into their lap.” She sighed again. “My friend Frank was like that. He didn’t even take his orders till he was in his forties. I…he lost his child and the Lord helped him.”  
  


“Didn’t God just take his kid anyway?”

Chloe shook her head. “But we have Free Will, which can be a beautiful thing, it really can. Sometimes, people decide to be shitty though. Some terrible person decided to get drunk that night, and Frank lost his family. I…with me some jerk robbed a convenience store, and my dad was the beat cop trying to stop it. The choice was all on them; Our heavenly father didn’t do it.”

“Maybe,” the girl said, unconvinced. “Sometimes I feel like I traded my soul for all my fame, like the Devil made me do everything I’ve done since I got my big break.”

“The Adversary is only someone who whispers at us. At the end, we’re people, and we make our choices. It’s the catch of the whole system. I like to think of it like God and the Devil have their feud, like with Job, but they do it all indirectly. At the end of the day, we tip the balance ourselves.” She shrugged and patted Sammy’s hand. “Honestly, if you really feel like the life you lead has you trapped, if it’s one more step on the road to Hell, then you can always choose another life. I really believe that.” Chloe smiled and pulled her hand back, letting her fingers graze over the crucifix around her throat. “If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t have found my path either.”

“Really?”

Chloe nodded and handed the girl her card from her pocket and a spare rosary, nothing as ornate as the one she carried for herself that she’d been gifted with when she’d taken orders, but she kept a few for others in case. “Here, take this if you ever need to talk. I’d be happy to speak more with you. You really have been like a little extra bit of sunshine around here, Sammy. If you think you need a change, maybe I can help you make it.”

The girl took the card and shoved it in her jeans pocket. “I hope so. There’s someone I need to see tomorrow, the guy who helped get me started in the business.” She chuckled nervously. “God…I mean, jeez, that makes me sound like a whore. I mean, I am but just for my record label. In my other life, I’m a singer.”

Chloe smiled politely. “You’ll get used to the not blaspheming if you want to. As it is, I’m not here to rat you out to the man upstairs either.” She winked at her. “I used to be a very terrible teen actress, so I know what you mean. That industry is all about evaluating you on looks and just the shallow. It’s tiring.”

“Should I become a nun?”

“It’s not the de factor calling for just leaving fame, no,” Chloe admitted. “However, I think you might be on the right track. Maybe you want to get into non-profit work or do things to help people. Maybe you can find a way to even use your voice to help others, maybe join a choir or something fun and low key. I’m just saying that you aren’t trapped. There’s always a better choice.”

Sammy nodded and stood up. “Thank you. I’ll be back in a few days, promise. Like I said, I enjoy it here. Makes everything feel simple…quieter, you know?”

“It’s when it’s really quiet that we can think, totally.”

“You’re a weird nun.”

Chloe laughed. “Believe me. I get that _a lot_.”

**

She opened her eyes, but even before she did it, Chloe knew he was there. Like always The Devil appeared to her with eyes full of flame and a scarred, reddened face. It should be enough to repel her. Once, it had been. When the dreams had started almost five years ago, she’d considered them nightmares. How could she not?

Satan was stalking her, and yet, the fear hadn’t lasted.

At first in the visions, he just stood in the corner of her modest cell and stared at her, those hellfire eyes unerring in their openness. The Devil never blinked. Sometimes, he’d stare at her for hours. It was so bad that she’d broken down crying in the Mother Superior’s office. It had gone poorly. The mother was ancient and crotchety, everything about her completely old school to say the least. She’d berated Chloe for her sinful nature and given her kitchen chores for months and so many Hail Marys that Chloe lost count.

But he still came.

Eventually, he started to speak to her. Well, not to her, more like at her. They were more like glimpses into long soliloquys, most often at rants he seemed to ave aimed at his father. Why Chloe was privy to any of this, she didn’t know. She was far from a saint, and as the Devil talking to her drew on, she’d discreetly sought psychological help from a free clinic on the other side of L.A.

But those meds hadn’t helped either.

  
What had eased her fears and moved her nightmares into the territory of dreams were two things: confessing to Father Frank and the final way the visions had evolved.

First, she’d gone after the first year to Frank’s parish and let it all out. He had been kind, hadn’t judged her or called her sinful or crazy. He’d just listened and promised her that even among clergy the confessional was sacrosanct. Then, he’d taken her to a small bar across the corner from the church and paid for a few drinks. They’d gotten big eyes staring back at them, but they were Catholic---not dead---and a few drinks and a smoke for Father Frank were still perfectly allowed. He’d told her then that perhaps it was a gift, something God actually wanted her to see. Father Frank hadn’t quite implied she’d been drafted into being the mediator in the world’s crappiest father-son relationship, but she’d gathered that from him anyway.

So, she started trying to listen to the rants, which were long and often drunken. And, honestly, the story that had unfolded through the deep, rumbling somehow British (really?) lilt was sad and difficult. Chloe wasn’t stupid, and she knew the version from the Devil was far from accurate, but the more she heard his laments to his father, the more she wondered if God’s side so far was as noble and cut-and-dried as the Bible said.

After all, she and her mom didn’t get along either.

Not in a damned to Hell way, but she could relate, especially after she quit acting and joined the nunnery. Man, she and her mom still weren’t on great speaking terms even now.

It was a far cry from a lake of fire, but Chloe could understand.

And for a while, she’d somehow gotten used to the sad, blotto rambling Devil at her bedside. But a year ago, the visions changed again. Mostly now when he came to her, he brought such temptation, like her own personal incubus. At first, she’d tried to refuse his overtures, his flattery. Honestly, like his rants at his father, it seemed like they were intended for someone else, like he wasn’t actually _seeing_ her at all, not like in the early days when he’d only stared.

Then, he’d worn her down and despite what she knew was wrong---what was downright damnable as an offense---Chloe gave herself willingly in her dreams to her phantom Devil. Let him kiss her, then do more, until she’d lain with him an untold number of times between the sheets, at least in her mixed-up mind. Pleasures she’d barely had time to enjoy as a teen actress and ones she’d ignored for well over a decade were back for her.

By night.

She knew it was wrong, but he didn’t go away, and he hadn’t left in four years. At least now, she looked forward to her night visions, to ones that even now still vacillated between his morose laments and the nights where they seemed, even if his focus wasn’t quite _on_ her, to find mutual pleasure in each other.

This was one of those.

Those red flames in his eyes flickered hungrily at her, and Chloe couldn’t help but feel the wetness pooling between her legs, couldn’t fight how much she wanted him. He was very much the Beast of Revelation, the Devil if not incarnate than in her presence with horribly burned skin and scarred, ragged lips. Ones that still teased her clit and brought her the greatest possible heights.

“You’re something to behold, truly, you minx,” he said, his voice a growl but still oddly formal, somehow endearingly proper with the added accent.

There was probably something wrong with her subconscious---understatement---that she’d made the Devil randomly British like every Hollywood villain ever.

Yet it fit him. All of it fit him so well from his three-piece Prada suit in ebony complete with fitted waistcoat to his lanky yet commanding frame to the inescapable power of his voice. And it made her weak with want.

Chloe smiled back at him. She’d long given up talking to him. He had never really heard her in four plus years, and she assumed he couldn’t. That if these were visions from On High (big if, she was hardly Joan of Arc), then they were on different frequencies, her AM to his FM. Besides, no words were needed now.

Not that it ever stopped the Devil from talking.

Someone loved the sound of his own voice; that was certain.

He stalked to the edge of her modest cot. It was barely a full bed, but that was better than most convents, where it was a twin at best. Chloe slipped out of bed just long enough to take off her nightgown and leave herself bare before him.

Red rough hands eased their way down her legs, parting her knees.

Soon, the Devil was kneeling at her feet in the most perverse kind of reverence as he set his palms flat on either side of the mattress. “Oh, perfect, minx, just what I wanted.” Again, his eyes didn’t meet hers. They looked to somewhere else in the room, and she wasn’t quite sure what he was seeing…if it was even her, but she didn’t care. Not now that she had him. “And what do you _desire_?”

The word caused her to shiver but nothing more. Chloe could tell the way he said it and with the effort he put into both syllables that he was willing great power into it. It was just power that didn’t affect her. At least not anything more than making her clit throb harder and her muscles clench in her belly.

She couldn’t keep herself quiet, even if he never really responded in time with her. “Please,” she moaned, trying to keep her voice quiet. God help her if Mother Superior found her like this. “I need…”

The Devil talked a bit longer, promising her truly dirty things coming, before finally bringing his tongue to her folds. He laved at them first, slavering attention over them before nuzzling at her most sensitive spot. His lips, scarred but still somehow comfortable, wrapped around her clit, and he began to suck on it in earnest.

Jesus Christ, could he use that tongue of his.

It twisted and teased around her clit even as eager fingers found their way into her core. Soon he was fucking her hard with two fingers deep into her channel while he sucked and sometimes, just a bit, nipped at her clit. She bucked against him but did not speak, didn’t dare make enough noise to cause any other nun to come running.

She couldn’t afford it.

Looking down, Chloe watched, entranced as his red-skinned head bobbed between her legs, a contrast to their pale creaminess. All that difference between her smooth skin and his craggy appearance, his eyes that blazed with flame and her own that had to be opened far too wide in her ecstasy.

The Devil sucked her clit so hard that she finally came, arching her back up and biting the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming out and risking Mother Superior’s attention. The waves of pleasure worked their way through her, and blissed out, Chloe collapsed to the mattress, letting herself catch her breath and willing the dream to end, like they always did.

The Devil stood and wiped off his lips and his expression was nothing shy of self-satisfied smirk. But something was different in his gaze this time. Something _real_ was there. For the first time since the visions started, his fiery glance landed on her eyes directly and he spoke, his tone still weirdly polite but utterly baffled too:

“Who are you?”

She froze instantly. Not sure of what to say. He wasn’t supposed to…he’d never really spoken _to_ her before. What was she supposed to do now?

The Devil frowned and regarded her again, at her truly well and debauched state, and frowned (if you could call it that on what remained of his face). “What the bloody hell is going on?”

Chloe took in a deep shuddering breath, figuring she had to say something, and opening her mouth to start---

When her alarm rang, waking her for morning devotion and chores, and she sat bolt upright in bed. The sun was easing through the window at almost six a.m., and her head was still spinning. Hopping up, she turned off both her blaring clock and her buzzing cell phone. Then, she slipped back onto the mattress and set her head in her hands.

These weren’t just dreams or even visions any longer, and she had to admit that. No, after five years, they’d only gotten more real, more _tangible_ , and now the Devil recognized her. Had demanded her name.

Chloe didn’t know what to do about that, but she had to figure something out soon because she’d dream of him again by week’s end; she always did. And the Devil would expect answers then. Ones she didn’t yet have.

**

Lucifer didn’t startle awake as such. The (former) King of Hell did _not_ startle, and yet, he definitely woke more suddenly than usual that morning. His movement alerted the brunette beside him and she moaned a little and muttered about it being too early. That wasn’t technically true. The chateau’s bedside clock was already blaring two p.m. in red numbers, but since they’d gone to bed well after sunrise, this nightly company wasn’t completely wrong either.

He'd dreamed.

Often, Lucifer couldn’t remember what he dreamed, and he had little interest in doing so. Back in Hell, sleep had been elusive for centuries, something that he couldn’t afford for more than a few hours at most at a time for the first centuries, and even with Mazikeen watching his back, Lucifer had been too keyed up to rest. Then, even when he could sleep, his dreams were more like memories or, often, the worst of them would bubble to the surface at night---the Rebellion, the Fall that never seemed to end, the burning alive for thousands of years---all agony in different ways.

No. Sleep was not necessarily his friend.

But since he’d come to Earth for a permanent holiday, he’d found that sometimes he woke less rested than when (to be honest) he’d passed out after a night of debauchery. The most he had ever been able to glean from them before had been a pair of blue eyes so clear they were like the ocean.

Until tonight.

  
Tonight, he’d remembered a woman stretched out before him in rather drab surroundings but the action, the _supplication_ , was familiar. The blue-eyed stranger in his dream and he had enjoyed quite a good fuck together, not that he could remember much of it, and she’d been startled herself to realize he could _see_ her back. Not to see him, that much Lucifer could tell. No, she had been shocked he’d stared _at_ her, that he’d spoken…clearly from her wanton position and satisfied exhaustion when he’d first noticed her, well, the blonde was no stranger to him.

It was, to be blunt, the weirdest dream he’d ever had because it had felt so bloody real.

Sighing, Lucifer collected himself and dressed. Usually, he was loathe to go anywhere without being fully cleaned, and his time with Faith (ironic that) had been pleasant, but he had no desire to spread it out longer or give her the impression that was a possibility. So, he left her a quick note in the den of the suite and promised her the room was paid up through till tomorrow if she wanted extra rest and room service, and that he’d had a lovely time.

He had _Lux_ to get to anyway, and Maze was already short with him of late. A demon who desperately wanted to go home. _Tough_. He loved Earth, and he wasn’t ever leaving it. His right hand would have to get used to this arrangement and find a way to slake her own boredom if sex was no longer sufficing.

And yet, even as he slipped into the front seat of his Corvette, Lucifer couldn’t shake off those crystal-blue eyes, the dream, or how that strange figment of his imagination _clearly_ knew him.

**

“Chloe, you seem upset, please tell me what’s on your mind.” Father Frank gestured to the confessional, and she nodded.

Chloe didn’t have to do anything this formally. In fact, after this, they’d both hit _Limericks_ down the street and drink something to calm both their nerves as was customary. But this was easier somehow, maybe it was the ancient design of all confessionals, but only partially being able to see her friend’s face as she confessed just how _sinful_ her visions had grown this last year…she couldn’t look Frank fully in the eye and tell him.

He’d _never_ understand.

So, instead, she walked into her half of the booth and, taking out her rosary, crossed herself and started into confession. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been seven days since my last confession.”

Frank’s voice was warm and steadying on the other side of the grate. “I am aware, Chloe. We seem to have a regular appointment after mass.”

She chuckled a little or tried to. It came out more like a squashed hiccup. “I know I just…it’s bad, Frank. It’s really bad.”

“I’ve known you a while now, Chloe, and I have rarely met even among the clergy a more decent or better person, so I’m sure you’re not off secretly murdering puppies behind my back. It’s alright. Is this about the visions? You haven’t talked about them in a long while. I had hoped for your sake that they might be slacking off.”

Chloe swallowed hard and steadied her nerves. “It’s the opposite. When they first started, they were maybe monthly? Maybe a little longer.” She sighed. “It’s hard to remember exactly. But it’s different now. They’re different.”

“More frequent?” And even her dear friend couldn’t keep the worry out of his voice. Frank might not think she was crazy, and, for now, he didn’t think her corrupt or sinful, but maybe he was beginning to change his stance on her visions being a gift from God, himself. “You never mentioned.”

“I was dealing with them. To be honest, after you talked to me about them, I _did_ view them as maybe some weird vision set from God. I don’t know. For a while, maybe once or twice a week, I’d see him,” she coughed a little before continuing. “the Devil, and he’d either be drunk and staring off at nothing or rambling at his Dad. I’m pretty sure God wasn’t actually answering him on the other end.”

“Weekly? Chloe, you could have told me.”

“It wouldn’t have changed anything. I can’t _control_ them.”

“But you wouldn’t have had to feel so alone with them either,” Frank corrected. “I don’t think they can harm you, but to hear the Devil ranting at God on the regular has to have its distressing sides. How could it not?”

She giggled a little until she snorted. “That part’s not the worst. He has a colorful vocabulary. He’s British, or um, pretends to be, so he’s picked up all this slang I still haven’t figured out.”

“That’s something then. I’d almost like to hear that,” Frank said.

She knew he meant it. Frank had such a different start as a clergyman than most of the other priests she knew. For fuck’s sake, he’d been a studio pianist for _The Rolling Stones_. Chloe was sure that in his youth, there was nothing Frank hadn’t seen or done on the circuit. He might find the Devil swearing at God in a string of Brit slang hilarious. Also, considering his exposure to Jagger and Richards, Frank would actually understand that quarter of whatever the Devil said that confused her.

“This part’s hard.”

“Have the visions hurt you?” Frank paused. “Is there a way for them to physically affect you? If the Devil is menacing you, then we do have to come up with a plan.”

“Do you mean if he’s what? Burning me or scratching me or…”

“Anything like that, and we could investigate ways to try and stop them.”

“Exorcism?” she asked, her voice trembling. “You’re the one who thought I wasn’t possessed, and that God had given this to me.”

“I am and I still mostly do, but if these visions are now hurting you in any way, then we do have to get rid of them. I can’t turn a blind eye if my friend’s in pain.”

She blushed and hoped he couldn’t see that through the grating. “It’s not…Jesus, Frank, it’s _the opposite_.”

He quirked his head at her and leaned closer, trying to study her as much as he could through the barrier between them. “I don’t understand.”

“Years ago, the visions became intimate.”

“Chloe!”

“I couldn’t help or change them, and I don’t think…he…the Devil never really looks at me when it happens. I think whatever is going on seems like a dream to him too or he’s, I dunno, maybe with someone else in real life and I’m getting a weird echo of it. It was just happening, and I didn’t think it was targeting me.”

Frank shook his head. “I shouldn’t have encouraged you to explore this connection. I was wrong.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” she chided, voice tight. “I’m either the defective one with crazy visions, and that’s the good option. Or I’m actually haunted by the Devil.”

“Or an insanely clever incubus, yes,” Frank said, and she expected him to laugh after that, to tell her he was kidding. He just continued. “We do have to think seriously about ways to sever this connection. Even if this is…if my first guess was right and God wants you to see and _feel_ all you are for His purposes…this can’t be safe for you.”

“I don’t know anymore,” she said, and she was glad she hadn’t admitted that when the Devil came to her (and in her) that he was as red and raw and horrifying as anything out of scripture. She was pretty sure that for all his affection for her and kindness, Frank really would call the Vatican right then and there. “I’m scared. _Last night_ was the first time he noticed me. Like really noticed me. He asked for my name.”

Frank swore lividly. “Don’t tell me you gave the Lord of Hell your name.”

“Of course not. If you can banish demons by knowing their whole names, then I’m smart enough to get they can hurt us with that much information. I just refused to answer him, my alarm rang, and I woke up, connection severed. But the visions always come back, and if he’s finally aware of me, I don’t know what’s going to happen.” She didn’t burst into tears. A few slid down her cheeks, but she didn’t want to sob in front of Frank.

Not as much for his sake, but more because she was terrified that if she started, she’d never stop.

Frank stood and walked out of the confession and then opened the door to her own booth. “Chloe, we will figure this out. I might have fucked this up earlier by assuming this was a divine gift for you, but we will find a way to keep you safe from the Devil. If you want to, that is?”

She nodded and knew her cheeks had to be flaming red. The truth was, for most of the year, until Satan had stared _back_ at her, Chloe hadn’t wanted the pleasure to end. But now, now that the Devil really saw her and was demanding her identity? Yes, she needed to get away from all of it.

“Please, Frank, please help me.”

**

The lead with 2Vile was promising, as such things go, and the psychiatrist who had turned out to be delightfully flexible and he might have to call on Dr. Linda Martin more often, had provided him with enough information to follow up with the movie star pretty boy when the arse returned from filming in San Francisco in two days. It was unlikely since he’d been across the state that he was the killer, but like 2Vile, he might at least know who else had been in poor Delilah’s shady circle of lovers.

Poor, poor Delilah. His protégé had such a lovely voice, a huge heart, and honestly was great with bartending. Maybe if he hadn’t granted her that favor…if he’d given her a permanent and safe home at _Lux_ , she’d be alive. Happier too. She’d wanted the fame of being a singer, but it clearly hadn’t sat well with her. All the choices she’d made andall that pain.

Some monster who’d killed her, paid for a ne’er-do-well like that to “just pull the trigger.”

However, he’d also been able to charm his way into the morgue and one of the last things found in Delilah’s clutch had been a business card for a nun who co-ran a local soup kitchen of all things. He’d no idea that had ever been Delilah’s bent, but she’d been kind and open, so it didn’t surprise him she’d been philanthropic on the down low. However, there was the possibility with this murder that she’d known someone was stalking her or whichever of her myriad of questionable beaus had been after her. Maybe the nun had noticed something while Delilah was volunteering.

It was worth checking out until the movie star pillock was home at least.

He didn’t relish it exactly as he expected Sister Chloe Decker to be about a million years old, have a stick up her arse, and be as receptive to the Devil as any of her ilk. On the other hand, any time he could wind up one of Dad’s favorites was also a good day. Besides, for Delilah’s memory, he could play nice enough to get the information he needed before he had a go at the nun.

Lucifer entered the kitchen an hour before it was open to the public, and regarded the volunteers working to unload boxes and start manning the food stations. In a few minutes, a feisty woman with dark black hair in a high ponytail came over and shoved a case of Campbell’s soup in his hands.

“Dude, you shouldn’t wear whatever that is for your Instagram account. We do actual work here, and it’s great you want to help, but you just…we have some spare scrubs and stuff in back for first timers who make that mistake.” She shook her head. “Sorry for not being friendly. I’m---”

Just then, a voice called out between them “Ella, we don’t have any new volunteers scheduled for today. It’s okay for you to get back to the kitchen. I’ll handle it.”

Lucifer turned toward the far corner of the refurbished gym to where the administrator of all this had called for Ella. She hadn’t come out of her office yet, just opened the door wide enough to give her order. Odd, if this were Chloe Decker, she didn’t sound eighty years old. Maybe she was more like a novitiate. Now those were _fun_.

Ella shrugged and took the cans back from him. “My mistake.”

“I should have clarified first,” Lucifer countered. “The error is all mine, Miss?”

“Lopez. Anyway, smell you later but next time dude? So, don’t do the Prada or whatever.”

“Burberry actually.”

“Sure, whatever,” she said and turned back to the kitchen.

He chuckled to himself as she almost skipped away, cumbersome box in her arms be damned. Something about her reminded him a bit of his little sister Azrael. How odd that. Lucifer was still laughing a little when the nun---probably Sister Decker---finally reached him and put a hand on his shoulder to get his attention.

“Sir, you have to call and make appointments for new volunteer orientation and things like that. It’s nice you want to help, but we also like to screen people and make sure they’re ready to asssist.”

“Help? People who probably smell like urine and rats? I get enough of that in Hell, why would I help?” he said turning around and stilling.

The woman before him wasn’t a novitiate. The habit told him as much but so did her face which left him pegging her age at somewhere in her mid-thirties. And her eyes. Ones as blue as the sea, ones he’d seen last night in a very hazy dream.

“Who are you?” he demanded, the joviality leeching from his tone. If she were another trick of his father’s, then he was _not_ amused.

For her part, the nun stilled, his accent and voice startling her almost as much it seemed as the face from his dream last night was shocking him. To his affront, she pulled out a silver chained rosary and gripped it tightly in her right hand. “I…who are you and what are you actually doing here?”

Lucifer gestured to her office. “Lucifer Morningstar. I own _Lux_ , a night club downtown, not that you’d know, and I have some questions for you about a dear, departed friend of mine. But, quite honestly, I have far more queries now that we’ve met. Would you like to speak more privately, Sister?”

The nun’s knuckles were white as she gripped her beads, and her gaze vacillated between her office and the kitchen. He knew the gesture. He’d done it innumerable times in Hell, sizing up the threat of demons. She was trying to decide what she’d chance---being alone with him or risk him hurting her staff.

He sighed and gave her a slight nod. “You’re Sister Chloe Decker, aren’t you?”

“How did you know?”

Lucifer reached into his breast pocket and handed her the card. “My dear friend Delilah had this on her when she was…she was murdered, and the LAPD would rather contemplate their navels than actually do their damn jobs. I’m trying to find justice for her, myself. I don’t know how you knew her exactly or, I presume, how often she volunteered here, but I’m a man of my word and to be rather blunt, a fairly solid businessman here in Los Angeles. My vows are my bonds. So, Sister Decker, you have my word that I mean no one here any harm---it’s hardly my desire whilst on holiday anyway---and that I merely want answers.”

“Lucifer, huh?” she asked.

“Is the Devil not allowed in a soup kitchen? This is a refurbished gymnasium and hardly a holy shrine. Big secret that, but I’m allowed wherever I please. I just have no interest in going where Father has his flock, rather dull if you ask me.”

The nun’s right hand was now in a clear death grip around her rosary. Oh, this one _knew_. Sometimes, though far more rarely than most humans would assume, a priest or rabbi would _know_ what he was, feel it instinctively. Sister Decker had no doubt the literal Devil was in her presence, hadn’t even scoffed about the potential night club act or persona side of “Lucifer Morningstar.” Good then, maybe she could explain why the bloody hell he was dreaming about her too.

Wasn’t clairvoyance; that was beyond him.

“I don’t know why I’d trust your word.”

“Deal with the Devil, Sister? Surely, you’ve heard of that. I deliver my ends of all bargains accordingly. I am quite serious that my word is my bond. Besides, I’ve no interest in hurting anyone here. If anything, your volunteer, Miss Lopez, is endearingly energetic. Let us take this to a more private corner. All I wish is to learn more about Delilah. That is all I need for now.”

She glanced one last time to the kitchen and nodded. “Alright but you promise not to hurt me?”

“I am a being of my word, Sister, and it wouldn’t help me and my case at all. Besides, no matter what they tell you at the convent, I have little interest in hurting any humans, well, not the live ones here topside. Those souls who end up in Hell have earned their punishment. If they hadn’t, would Father’s rules have sent them to me in the first place?”

“I guess not.”

“Exactly, now lead the way.”

**

Chloe was shaking. This was the Devil. There was no scarred or reddened face, no hellfire eyes, but she could feel his essence here even more strongly than in her dreams. Besides, the bespoke suits and less gravelly but still very precisely British voice were familiar too, were things she’d heard for years in her cell by night. There was no doubt that the Adversary had finally found her, and she wasn’t sure what he wanted.

Was he angry? Was he going to claim her now and whisk her off to Hell? She couldn’t even blame him after all they’d done together, and she’d gone through with him in her dreams. Technically, the Devil did have a reputation for honoring deals, albeit with fine print firmly in place. She believed him when he swore he wouldn’t hurt her volunteers.

Chloe just hoped that wasn’t a naïve mistake.

“Sister Decker, are you quite alright?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think I’m going to be okay for a very long time.” Chloe slid down into her chair and felt a small, pathetic bit better with an ancient, large metal desk between her and the Devil. Not that it would make a difference depending on what Lucifer truly wanted. He could be on her in a flash after all.

“You know who I am. That is to say you truly believe me.”

She nodded. “I do believe you, which is why I’d like to help you get on your way as fast as possible. I don’t want to risk the souls of good volunteers, of people I care about.”

The Devil---and it was so odd to see him with a human face after so very long---grinned at that. Wide brown eyes regarded her. “Well, aren’t you a fierce thing, especially for a nun. Were you always devoted to Father’s cause?”

“I was an actress once. This town…that whole thing didn’t really stick. It’s been a lifetime since I actually acted and, even then, I’d barely call some of the stuff I made a movie.”

And that was it. That was when her day went from bizarre to utterly farcical. The Devil---Prince of Darkness, Lord of the Flies….etc.---clapped his hands together and guffawed. “How marvelous. That explains everything!”

“I don’t understand.”

“I had the oddest feeling I’d recognized you, and of course I know you. You’re _that_ Chloe Decker. I knew the name seemed vaguely familiar. Oh, Sister,” he said, lowering his voice to a too familiar purr that went straight to her belly, causing it to flare with warmth. “you’re so spectacular. I mean, hard to tell with those formless things if you’ve held up, but you were magnificent in _Hot Tub High School_.”

Her eyes widened. Was that it? Was that the joke of her life? Had the Devil psychically reached out on her wavelength because he was a fanboy of the dumbest movie of all time and the biggest mistake of her short-lived career?

“What?”

“Oh, I’m quite the fan. I hadn’t been to earth since the late ‘70s last time. Yours was one of the first DVDs I caught up on when I arrived. It was in the hotel suite and it made me realize I had so much to catch up with cinematically speaking. Why ever would you become a nun?”

She rolled her eyes. “Great, you’ve seen my boobs. You and most guys in the age range of 15 to 40. How exciting for you.”

He leaned back and laughed again. “Oh, you’re definitely too interesting to be a nun, Chloe. Why on earth would you have left the glitz and glamor for a refurbished gym and endless prayers to Father, who by the way is not around to hear them anyway? That I have on my brother Amenadiel’s authority. Feathery pillock can be shifty, but apparently Father’s been on one of his walkabouts of late.”

“Why I took orders isn’t the issue here,” she snapped.

Not her father. The Devil didn’t get to hear about that, to listen to the story that opened the wounds up fresh about how she’d lost the biggest influence in her life. Even if she were that crazy, he wouldn’t appreciate it. Clearly, he hated his Father.

“No, I suppose not.” He took in a deep breath and sighed. “Sister, then, to business. Did you know Delilah?”

“We had a newer volunteer here lately. She called herself ‘Sammy,’ and had come maybe a half dozen times all last month. She didn’t talk much about herself. The final time she was here, she did admit she was still in the music industry, but she was dressed pretty plainly, and I didn’t recognize her as _the_ Delilah. I’d honestly had no idea.”

“Is that all?”

“Well she had a watch. A Rolex. She had it on under her sweater. I noticed her check it, and, yeah, it’s been a while since I was semi-famous, but I still know that brand when I see it. It was how I figured out she wasn’t the usual volunteer, and we talked. She seemed sad, like she wasn’t sure she wanted to sing anymore. I mean, now that I know she was that Delilah and all the things that had been going on in her personal life and with her addiction stuff…I can understand how she felt she needed a break. She was very sweet. All the regulars liked her.”

The Devil surprised her by giving a soft, nostalgic smile. “She was. She worked at _Lux_ , my club. A few years ago, she wanted me to help get her a break in the music business. She was so sweet and so eager, and I couldn’t refuse the request.”

“You feel guilty.”

He blinked and forced a laugh. This one held none of the low reverberations of his previous throaty chuckles. “I’m the Devil. We’ve both clearly established this. I _can’t_ feel guilty. I never have in a very long and, as you know, a very wicked life.”

She’d seen him drunk and ranting at his Father and while the anger was always there, there was so much sadness there too. Chloe didn’t think even the Devil realized it about himself, but he did regret things. Maybe he didn’t feel guilty…couldn’t connect his own fault to his pain, but the Devil was capable of feeling something deep and wounded.

“But she was still your friend, and now you’re sad she’s gone.”

“I’m furious that someone had her murdered. I will find who paid the hitman, and I will make them suffer.”

“I shouldn’t help you. You’ll damn whoever you find,” she replied.

“They damned themselves by writing a check and directing a drive-by-shooter at my friend,” he replied. “You humans get that wrong too, especially the clergy. I _don’t_ make you do anything you don’t truly want to do.”

She swallowed hard and crossed her legs under her desk. Oh boy, did Chloe know that firsthand.

“Besides,” he continued, straightening the lapels of his suit. “I am quite serious on this. I don’t have control over who is damned or not. On a day-to-day basis, neither does Father. Oh, don’t get me wrong. He set the machinery in place---when doesn’t he with all his plans---but the guilt you feel or don’t is what weighs you down. So, if you humans cheat on your spouse or steal from the offering plate, it’s _on you_. I just have to collect your souls as mess afterwards down in Hell.” He shrugged. “Or I did. I’m retired now.”

“Can you just leave?”  
  


“Did five years ago. Seems to be sticking,” he replied. “Sister Decker, is there anything else you can recall?”

She sighed. “For Sammy… _Delilah’s_ sake, I wish I’d known more. She seemed to know someone was mad at her though. She kept looking around the shelter nervously, like she expected someone to show up and hurt her. She said it was just fear of the paparazzi exposing her and drawing too much hassle here, but I don’t believe that. I think she knew someone wanted to hurt her. The reason I gave her my card is that I was trying to encourage her to talk to me about it later. But---”

The Devil nodded. “That time never came.” He stood and she did not follow suit. The last thing Chloe wanted was to get any closer to him than she already was. “Sister, thank you for your help. I may call on you again if my other leads run dry. I don’t deny that, but it has nothing to do with your soul.”

“I don’t know if I can believe the Devil’s word.”

He clenched his jaw but relaxed it soon enough. “ _Lucifer_ , Chloe. Please, just call me by my given name. It’s a common courtesy. And, you’ll find so far, that I’m a Devil of my word, and even if I weren’t, violence against most humans is beneath me. I merely want to give the murderer in question what he or she deserves. That’s all.”

“Damnation.”

“They’re the ones who hired a hitman. Nasty business that, ruins a soul just as surely as pulling the trigger yourself.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

He nodded. “Yes, because you strike me as unfailingly good, Sister. Not many who would give up the glitz and glamor of Hollywood for a convent.” He quirked his head and considered her a bit longer. “No, you’re fascinating.”

“Lucifer…I…please just leave.”

He nodded. “If I have future questions? For Delilah’s sake?”

She sighed. The girl who’d come here had been kind and sweet. She deserved for her murderer to at least be found but _then_ turned over to the police. The Devil in her waking life might terrify her, but Chloe still wanted to help Delilah. It was the right thing to do.

“Alright, Lucifer, you have a deal. You can come back here if you need more help with the case.”

“Oh, Sister, the décor here is not for me. If I’ve need of you, I’ll send a car to bring you to _Lux_ , unless nightclub debauchery offends?”

She rolled her eyes. “I was an actress once, and I’m not Mother Superior. You can’t really shock me.” Especially after everything they’d done in her dreams that Lucifer clearly didn’t seem to realize or remember. He really hadn’t been focused on her then, had he? For the better as she couldn’t afford to have the Devil obsessed with her. “If you need anything, call me.”

He smiled broadly and it should _not_ be affecting her like that, making her clit throb. “Lovely.”

**

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” Chloe said, taking seat in the booth and crossing herself. “It has been one day since my last confession.”

The voice that answered on the other side wasn’t Frank’s steady bass. No. It was a smooth baritone, one with a British lilt that she’d heard earlier that day at the shelter. “Sister, you’ve nothing to confess to me, not really.”

Chloe frowned. She’d fallen asleep, hadn’t she? She never even did confessionals on Mondays. This…this didn’t make sense.

“I’ve had carnal thoughts, Lucifer.”

She could see him just barely through the grating separating the booths. His dark eyes were clearly just an illusion, something that made it easy for him to pass around on earth. She knew better. For years had seen the bright crimson ones glare back at her. Somehow, she almost preferred that, the honesty in it. It was easier to remember that for whatever reason she could _see_ him, for whatever purpose she had these damn visions, the Devil was still a monster.

_The_ monster.

“Go on, Chloe,” he said, his voice almost caressing both syllables of her name.

She shivered and desperately crossed one leg over another to try and tamp down her lust, which had been warring with her fear ever since the Devil had walked into her life in the flesh.

“This isn’t real.”

“I suppose it isn’t. I am unsure. I dreamed about you earlier, but it makes sense that I would. I’ve seen your film more than once, and I believe this is my dream,” he admitted. “Too much in my subconscious, and I have always enjoyed luring those of the collar and habit away from Dad. It’s too delicious. However, Chloe, you’re quite lovely, and I’ve no compunction about seeing how this dream plays out. It’s been a while since I’ve corrupted a nun.”

Actually, no it hadn’t. Been more like a five-year-long fall, but Chloe wasn’t going to correct him. If he thought this was his dream and for all she knew about his actual abilities it could be, then just maybe he had been sucking her into his mind for years. That or his Father was the weirdest matchmaker of all time, but that was impossible, wasn’t it?

“I…” she started, unable to confess more to him.

“Do tell, Sister, what have you done? Shagged a priest lately? Touched yourself thinking of someone not so holy?” He leaned closer and practically purred in her ears. “You can tell Lucifer anything, darling. I don’t hear confessions and tell.”

“Well, I…there’s someone I’ve been intimate with.”  
  


“Who?”  
  


“I…sometimes I feel like the Devil comes to me at night. I’ve done so many things with him…”

“Have you now, darling?” His voice was low and sultry, and she was trying hard not to fling herself through the barrier between them. God, she was so pathetic. “Chloe, what have we done together, love?”

“You’ve gone down on me.”

“Oh, naturally. Always loved the sweet taste of a gorgeous woman.”

“Definitely had sex and for hours.”

“How many positions.”

“Lucifer!”

“Well, if this is confession, I need to know all the sins in order to dole out the proper amount of ‘Hail Marys,’ don’t I?”

“Missionary.”

“That’s the first step.”

“I…sometimes against the wall.”

“Then, I’ve failed at being imaginative, haven’t I? I owe you more.”

“My room at the convent’s pretty small.”

“Yes, that would but a cramp in things,” he said, chuckling. Then, Lucifer stood and opened up the door of his side of the confessional and approached hers, yanking it open in short order. “Have I taken you from behind?”

“I…” she blushed and stammered. “No.”  
  


He shook his head. “I figure that’s something I could manage even in a nun’s cell. I’ve neglected you, Chloe.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

Lucifer offered her his hand. “I think for once we deserve a bit more space, don’t you? Perhaps by the baptismal font or against that wall. Seems like enough room far from this stuffy booth.”

Chloe should have chided him for that, should have said a million things, but she didn’t. She just stood and let him lead her away to the wall, near the lit votives for memorial and prayer. His lips were on hers soon, capturing hers with a hunger that made her unable to almost even breathe. It was different this time, to feel soft lips over her. To run her hands through thick, almost curly hair. To have her palms meet the smooth surface of unblemished flesh.

She wasn’t certain if it was better or just different.

God, Chloe wasn’t even sure what was _wrong_ with her.

Lucifer didn’t waste much time. After that kiss, he pulled back long enough to tear off her habit, and then to sigh at the plain khaki pants and white blouse she wore underneath. “Dreadful ensemble all around, darling. The convent is trying to leech any fire out of you at all.”

“We can’t all be decked out in Prada.”

“Oh, a joke,” he said, tearing open her blouse, and she let him. “Did that hurt? I hope you know I am an equal opportunity whore for all designers, love.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, even as Lucifer slipped around and undid the straps of her bra and let the garment fell off her body and to the stone floor of the church below. “In fact---” she stopped then, higher thought gone when he leaned down and playful nipped at her collarbone and the hollow of her throat.

“Do tell me more,” he said, continuing his ministrations, even has his hands sought out the edge of the waistband of her pants. Long, lithe, and no longer scarred fingers slipped through her curls.

“I…Lucifer,” she moaned, as he laved at her throat again.

“That’s my name, love to hear your scream it out here, Chloe.”

The next moments were a blur of his hands roaming over her, discarded clothing---on her end---and the taste of him on her lips. Chloe wasn’t even sure when he’d gotten her fully naked or turned to face the wall, was only half aware of the unzipping of his own slacks before she was moaning and ready for him to enter her already.

He stopped still and leaned low enough to whisper in her ear. “Never thought I’d be so bloody enthralled by even one DVD. I admit my subconscious is rather clever, isn’t it? And you’ve held up spectacularly well.”

“Fuck you.”

“Oh, I intend to _fuck you_ quite deliciously now, Chloe. Are you ready?”

Chloe could admit it; she was barely fit for higher thought. She mewled as he slid into her, warm and thick. It had been a while since they’d…in her crazy fucked up visions, since she’d felt him inside her and definitely not from this angle before. It made her feel more full than usual. Hissing a little, she adjusted herself to take all of him in.

For an odd moment, he stilled and pressed a gentle kiss to her neck. “Are you alright?”

“Just need a minute to adjust---don’t make a joke out of that.”

He chuckled and kissed her neck again. “I won’t. You might not believe this with my foul reputation in your beloved book and liturgy, but I don’t hurt people, not the living. Besides, I take great pride in making my lovers feel only pleasure,” he tested pressing his hips forward teasingly slowly for her. “as you can well feel, darling.”  
  


Chloe nodded and despite everything she should have been doing, despite the fact this was _wrong_ , like always she couldn’t resist him. It was useless by now both because when she was in his arms, she didn’t want to be anywhere else, and if he did have her soul already in his grasp, was there any way for her to fight it?

Lucifer bucked his hips against her, and she moaned, responding to everything he gave her. One hand found her right breast and cupped it as he thrust, while the other made its way south to her clit, expert fingers playing her there like an instrument as he moved back and forth against her. She felt the intensity of everything in his motions, of the way her nerves burned with a fire all the way from her core.

However, it wasn’t until she looked back over her shoulder and saw the hint of red flames in his eyes that Chloe came, screaming Lucifer’s name out across the echoing expanse of the church. She sagged into his arms, and he cradled her tightly to his chest. It was oddly comforting from him, and nothing as gentle as she’d felt in the past. Lithe fingers stroked trough her golden hair, but they were rough at the tips. More familiar now. Blinking up, Chloe found the Devil she was used to staring back at her, scarred and burned.

Those hellfire eyes that were glinting at her and promising pleasure and, perhaps, even a hint of pain later.

“Chloe, that was---”

She nodded and smirked back at him, fully sated.

And then her damn alarm clock rang.

**

Her hands shook as she relayed a very edited version of her last twenty-four hours to Frank. It was enough to make the shot of whiskey he’d ordered for her at _Limericks_ slosh in her grasp. “And that’s where I am.”

She hadn’t told him the details of her latest dream of Lucifer, but she’d explained she’d had another one of _those_ type of visions after the actual Devil had come into her shelter.

Frank considered her and gulped down a shot of his own before gesturing for the bar tender to serve him another. “The Devil’s in Los Angeles?” He shrugged and sipped the second shot at a more normal pace after it was set before him. “Make sense after all. People are desperate here to trade in favors.”

“Kind of. Also, trust me, the film industry is its own form of Hell. I bet the record industry is too.”

“Oh, it is, Chloe.”

“It trapped Delilah eventually,” she said, unable to keep the sadness from coloring her words even as she took a sip of her whiskey. “That’s what’s up.”

“What’s up is the Devil has gone from a vision in the corner of your room to a lover, kind of, to now in your waking life. Does he know?”

She shook her head and folded her hands in her lap. “About the dreams? No. If he recognizes me at all, it’s just because---and get this—he’s a fanboy of _Hot Tub High School_.”

“We all have things we’d like to live down from our former lives.”

“You played with the Stones. I was in an _American Pie_ rip-off, not the same thing.”

“Perhaps,” Frank said, shaking his head. “Chloe, this is serious. I blame myself for everything. I just…I did believe the Devil and the channel you had to him was a divine gift.”  
  


“Not sure anymore?”

“Hard to see it that way with everything that happens in your dreams.”

She sighed and looked down at her half-full glass. “Did I disappoint you?”

It was weird to worry about that, but Frank was old enough about to be her father’s age, and she’d seen him as a mentor ever since they’d met almost a decade ago. She wanted him to still believe in her, even when she had no idea what she was doing herself.

“No, but I do worry I’ve left your soul in danger. If this is divine, what is it that God wants you to do for his son?”

She blushed. “Probably not what I actually am doing in the dreams. For the waking stuff, well, Lucifer is trying to solve Delilah’s murder. He called me yesterday to complain that the actor had been a dead end or, at least, it was all vague enough that 2Vile and the movie star could have both arranged it. I’m not Veronica Mars, here. I don’t solve crimes.”

“Your dad did.”

“Well, he was mostly a beat cop, but he was good with clues. I probably don’t have the same talent. You don’t get that from set tutors.”

“Okay,” Frank continued, running a finger over the rim of his tumbler. Let’s think about it this way. If God has put you in Lucifer’s path to help bring final peace to Delilah, how would you solve it?”

Chloe pulled at her scarf a little, adjusting it over her hair. She didn’t wear the full nun get up to _Limerick’s_ , but it was getting warm in the bar, and her head covering felt cloying. “Dad always said cases started with motive. Lucifer mentioned he’d been circling Gray Cooper, 2Vile, and her record producer Jimmy Barnes.”

“Oh Jimmy,” Frank replied. “I know him, unfortunately.”

“Is he the type to hire hitmen?”

“No, but he is the type to bet too much on sporting events or on wooing women. Or, to be honest, getting a new piece of arm candy to put up with him by giving her a black AmEx. He’s always vacillating between being washed up and with his nose finding the next big thing…till he milks it dry.”

“Yeah. I mean, Cooper didn’t have much riding on hiding his relationship with Delilah. His wife could care less and was already with his bodyguard. 2Vile seemed, uh, from what Lucifer said pretty busy running his own posse. Yeah, there was a history of domestic abuse the one time, but he said that he “loved the girl” and, on this thing, when Lucifer says he can tell if desires are true, I believe him.”

Frank nodded. “If you’re going to tempt people, you have to know what they want.”

“Working theory. So it circles back to Jimmy but he seems to have a clean reputation as far as things go. Google didn’t even turn up a DUI.”

“Well, you can pay fixers for that, but Jimmy’s problem is with betting on boxing in Vegas or the ponies. That stays between him and the bookies.” Frank shook his head. “Actually, it’s a shame poor Delilah died for a lot of reasons of course, but the soundtrack to her movie _Time Will Tell_ just exploded this week. It was in all the music trades.”

Chloe arched an eyebrow at him. “You still keep up with that?”

“I’m curious to see what happens to the people I used to know. You don’t ever read _Variety_?”

“I gave it all up. I’m not an actress anymore, and I was barely one when I was.”

“Chloe, I can see you’ve got something.”  
  


She chuckled. “How can you tell?”

Frank resettled his weight a bit on the barstool as he regarded her. “There’s this determined glint in your eye you get when you’ve made up your mind. So, who did it?”

“Oh, you just told me. The soundtrack is huge now, right?”

“Yes, fans are buying it up in the wake of her death. It’s a little morbid, but I can see how it’s nice to for her family or those left behind to see she was loved that way too. Why?”

“Do you know who produced the record by any chance? I mean, it’s kind of like when other artists die and sell stuff out _plus_ big tragedy means even more curiosity. It’s like literally scaring up business!”

“Oh, then it all really does fit together.”

“How?”

“Jimmy Barnes is the head producer on the album.”

**

Lucifer regarded Sister Chloe Decker as she stepped from his elevator and into the penthouse. She’d called him an hour ago to explain she’d figured out who’d murdered poor Delilah. He was keenly waiting for her proof so that he could mete out punishment accordingly. When the doors opened, she hesitated at the threshold, as if she’d finally realized she was entering the wolf’s den fully and had second thoughts on that.

Smart.

At least she was showing some self-preservation instinct.

He took her moment of indecision to admire her from his piano bench. Funny that. She was dressed in a modest gray shift that came down past her knees, a dark kerchief covered her hair, and her shoes were the most Espadrille-like of any he’d seen on a woman under seventy, but the softness of her features and the sparkling clarity of her azure eyes still left him breathless.

Again, utterly silly for the Devil to notice such things. He was probably just plagued by his odd dreams of late and latent memories of how he’d enjoyed _Hot Tub High School_ coming forward.

“Sister Decker, welcome to my humble abode.”

She rolled her eyes as she approached the piano. “Somehow, this is far from modest, Lucifer.”

“I could have gone for bigger.”

And he had estates in California that were grander, but he liked the hustle and bustle of being in the heart of the city as well as the view of the stars afforded to him from the balcony.

“There’s not low hanging fruit joke you want to go with that?” she asked.

He brought a hand to his chest in mock affront. “Sister, I’m a gentleman!”

She shook her head. “You are many things---club owner, amateur sleuth, and obviously the Devil incarnate.”

“At least you bloody know. Humans usually have such talent for denial, even half or more of the clergy.”

She stilled at that, and he desperately wanted it to be his imagination that she’d shivered. “But you are not modest. Besides, I can’t deny what you are, yet Delilah deserves for her killer to go to jail. I…if I tell you the name, will you kill him instead?”

“I am honest, Chloe. I don’t know if you understand that, but I always keep my word, and I always tell the truth. I will not kill him. I will even turn him over as a citizen’s arrest to the proper authorities. To be honest, all angels---even the Fallen---cannot kill a human.”

“You care about God’s laws now?”

“I am not eager to feel His wrath any longer,” Lucifer corrected. “Dear old Dad worked quite a doozy on me last time. Holiday is one thing; killing one of you precious lot would go too far. I won’t kill the murderer, which is more than he deserves.”

She nodded. “It’s Jimmy Barnes.”

“That homunculus? Quite impossible. I questioned him myself and…” Lucifer trailed off. He hadn’t asked the right question, had he? Jimmy had been asked if he’d killed Delilah, not if he’d been the financier of it. “Oh bollocks.”

She nodded. “Clicking isn’t it? My friend Father Frank was in the music business before he was a priest.”

“Gotta love L.A., even the holy men and women have headshots,” he added.

“Yeah, basically, and he said Jimmy gets in with the loan sharks like all the time. He was broke again and now that the soundtrack to her last movie is going to go platinum. and he produced it.”

“It’s so popular not because that movie, which bombed, was.” Lucifer concluded, feeling the rage simmering up through him. He blinked his eyes to keep the fire away. He didn’t want to scare the sister after she’d actually deigned to help him. “But you make it a big deal because of it being her _last_ album.”

Chloe nodded. “Exactly. That jerk created the demand for it himself and all it cost him was her life, and he didn’t care. I…maybe she knew. Maybe she’d had a big fight with him; I don’t know but she kept looking over her shoulder so much at the kitchen. I have the worst feeling he’d threatened her before no matter what she said about being more nervous about the paps.”

Lucifer stood and when he spoke, his voice was deep and furious. “Well, then, I have a music industry worm to see, don’t I?”

A soft hand was on his shoulder and the touch felt familiar, even if he’d only dreamed of her twice in his life. “Lucifer, you promise not to kill him?”

“I swear that I will do nothing to physically harm him, and he will live out the rest of his useless life in custody.”

All that was one hundred percent true. After all, Father had burned him to a cinder and forced him to rule kingdom of ash and monsters last time he’d broken the rules. He had no interest in coming out worse this time around from taking a human life. Besides, one look at his true face, and Jimmy would be a screaming puddle in a mental ward for the rest of his life anyway. It wasn’t quite tit-for-tat, but it would have to suffice.

“If you’re not---”

He pulled away from her and twisted the onyx ring on his finger. “I always tell the truth, Chloe, and maybe you’ll understand this someday, but you have my word of honor as the Devil that I will not kill or physically harm Barnes. Let me be off.”

“Can I…” she paused and considered it. “Can I stay here? I just want to hear from you in person when it’s done. Delilah does deserve this, and someone should be here at least to hear that Jimmy was delivered to the cops like he should be.”

“And you want to see me after, make sure I’m not covered in blood or some other rot from torturing him anyway?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to,” he said, striding to his elevator and pressing the button to open it. “Like I said, you don’t trust me yet, Sister, but you will.”

It was only after the doors closed before him that Lucifer realized what he’d said. Surely he hadn’t intimated they’d be acquaintances after this? She was a nun for Dad’s sake, one of the pure and good ones, not just a sanctimonious old bat. The last thing she’d ever give him was the first thing he’d want. Then again, despite his very vivid dreams of late, he’d found that he enjoyed her company, whether in person or over the phone, the tough edge to her and the surprisingly sharp banter back at him.

But she _knew_ , and she had taken holy orders on top of that. After he came back to relay most of what had happened to Jimmy, he’d never see her again. They’d have nothing in common after Delilah’s case was put to rest after all.

**

  
She drifted off on the sofa. Her she was, tiny, possibly insane or, worse, possibly infernally gifted Chloe Decker, and she’d found a way to nod off in the Devil’s home. To be fair, the sofa was large and ridiculously comfy. She was sure the leather it was made of like everything else in the apartment was ridiculously expensive and top of the line. Lucifer didn’t exactly want for creature comforts.

However, when she woke, she found Lucifer leaning over her, pulling a blanket up to her chin in a gesture that was far gentler than she could have given him credit for or imagined him doing till now. Those brown eyes were bottomless, and she could understand why, however he’d willed it, Lucifer had chosen this appearance to hide what he really was.

It could be so easy to trust him, if she let herself.

“Sister Decker, I’m happy to report that rat Barnes is in police custody. I have the card of an utterly dreadful detective by the name of Espinoza who couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag but who is handling the case. I did all the bloody work, of course, but he took Barnes from me with citizen’s arrest and all that. If you don’t believe he’s healthy and alive, you’re free to call right now.”

She didn’t miss the tight set in his jaw and the way his eyes glanced away from her after he finished. Sighing, she sat up and touched his cheek. Still odd after a year to feel the stubble there instead of scars.

“I believe you.”

“That’s novel.”

She shrugged and adjusted her position so that she was on one corner of the sofa. “I decided if you’re so adamant about your honor and not lying that I believe you. Until you prove otherwise, I trust you, Lucifer.”

“Well,” he said, a bit of barely suppressed glee in his tone. “aren’t you a surprising nun? I’ll never understand how my father got His hooks in you. You’re _far_ too interesting, darling, to be His.”

“You hate Him, don’t you?”

Lucifer laughed and twisted his cufflinks as he slid onto the sofa far across from her. “That is the grandest understatement in the history of time. I could not loathe the bastard more.”

“But you must have loved Him. He’s your father.”

“Yes, but that’s _why_ I hate him. He abandoned us. Got enamored with his own projects and then creating you lot…and he stopped being our father at all.”

She frowned at that. “But what I’ve learned---”

“Is utter bunk and propaganda. This is what I know: in the beginning things could be rather lovely, even Father fun, but the parts of the Silver City I loved the most were my closest siblings, Azrael comes to mind.”

“The Angel of Death?”

“We were all younger once, Sister, and she’s quite an engaging chatterbox.”

“Yes, because you’re so the strong and _silent_ type, Satan.”

“Ooh, what a burn. See what I mean? You’re too fun for Father. Most of his acolytes are dreadfully dull.” He smiled, and she wondered if that was a put-on as well, that the Devil could deliberately make himself look so soft and sweet and inviting.

Probably so.

“I find comfort in your father even if you don’t.”  
  


Lucifer shook his head. “You sound like my brother, Amenadiel. First born among the Host, and the most dedicated save for maybe my brother, Michael.”

She nodded, well aware that the Host was vast, and Lucifer probably had more siblings than even he could keep track of. “And you can’t respect that?”

“I can’t see the security in it, knowing that my father lives to disappoint. Eventually, as He turned away from us, Mother grew restless and cold. My younger siblings grew despondent with the fighting. I acted out, of course.”

She snorted. Only the Devil would call the most famous Rebellion in history nothing more than “acting out.” “Oh, believe me, everyone on earth has heard that story.”

“Only His side of it,” Lucifer replied, and his eyes flashed so fast that she wasn’t even sure he’d realized he’d done it.

“I get that, but I just…I find it sad. My dad was the best person I ever knew. The day I lost him it was like my whole world collapsed on me.”

Lucifer inched closer to her and was so gentle again, slipping a large hand of his own over hers. “I’m sorry. I have heard that some people actually like their progenitors. What happened to your dad?”

“He was killed on the job. Beat cop, you know. Just one bad day with a robbery gone wrong at a convenience store. I was nineteen, and the stupid movie I hate had only just come out like two weeks before. I couldn’t act anymore. For a while I couldn’t do _anything_. Then, I met Ella since she was a consultant on one of my mom’s films. She knows a ridiculous amount about cars, and she got me to start going to church, and I just felt Called.”

She sighed and almost wanted to cry. Considering her _visions_ and the possibility God had, at the least, Called her to help the Devil solve one murder and, perhaps, to act as the most unlikely intermediary between the two, Chloe almost wished she hadn’t been. It all sounded so crazy. And it was something she could never tell Lucifer if they ever saw each other beyond tonight. So much he couldn’t know because she could tell he truly did hate his Father as much as she’d glimpsed in her visions, and that if he thought for a second that she was sent directly by Him, then he’d never speak to her again.

Great, so couldn’t ever admit the sex dreams weren’t _quite_ dreams or that she’d “known” him for five years or that she might be divinely blessed (or cursed depending on how one looked at it). How was it in the relationship between a nun and the Devil, she was the one _lying_?

“Sister?”

“I…sorry. I didn’t mean to trail off. It was just that I wanted to find peace, and maybe you can’t with God, but I did. I found a life that works for me, and a way to deal with the hole of missing my dad. I mean, you wouldn’t be the first to hate my career change. My mom still hasn’t forgiven me, and it’s been fifteen years.”

Lucifer nodded. “For what it’s worth, even if I know for a very bitter fact that your faith is misplaced, I am glad that whatever you did…that if you’re happy as a penguin---”

“Lucifer!” she said, swatting at his arm with her free hand as if this were normal. As if he weren’t literally the Adversary and she weren’t whatever fucked up mess she was. That would have been a nice world, though, the one where they were just two people, and she hadn’t taken a vow of (waking) celibacy. “It’s a habit!”

“Oh, and it’s a bad one to keep. At least tonight you’re only partially nun-like. Dour as anything, but the Church never went in for fun outfits except the Pontiff’s hat. Now that has flair.”

She snorted. “I’ll let him know that the Devil loves his peacocking choices.”

“Do that, love.” Lucifer said, winking at her. “But I am glad, truly, that this gives you peace. I cared at least very much for my mum, once upon a time. I can understand how hard losing a parent you give a toss about is. I just cannot find anything but ash with Him. If you think just because you’re a nun, you could change my mind there---”

“I don’t.” Though it was a working theory for their connection at all. “I just, you asked, and I miss my dad is all. My life and career… _everything_ would be different if that damn thief hadn’t killed him, and I hate it.”

Lucifer slid across the sofa and quirked his head down at her. “May I?”

“I don’t understand.”

He slipped an arm around her shoulders and drew her close. This was the first time she’d ever had a caress quite like this from him, however her weird dreams did or didn’t count in her life. It was nice, safe. Oddly, it felt even more peaceful curled up in his arms than it had on the day she’d taken her orders.

“I’m very sorry for your loss, Chloe. I’m sorry it grieves you still.”

“You didn’t do it.”

“No, truly I did not. You humans are so lucky to have Free Will. Angels, as you know, do not.”

“Yes.”

“But the choices you lot make, well, I wish that one hadn’t ended up with so much hurt for you.” He sat up a bit but still stroked her shoulder. “Ooh, is he dead by any chance? I avoid Hell like the plague currently, but I’d gladly pop down there and add more tortures to that louse’s roster if you’d permit.”

Chloe sat up suddenly and practically flung herself to the little bit of free sofa space remaining to her. “What?”

And she had to remember everything, that this was the Beast of Revelation and the Great Deceiver and dreams were just dreams. Lucifer was still the Devil, and the Devil tortured souls. He ruled Hell, no matter how he insisted he was on vacation. He was sin incarnate, and Chloe would lose herself if she forgot that.

“Is he?”

“No! He’s in prison in L.A. County. I’d _never_ ask for that even if he were dead.”

Lucifer nodded and, standing, headed toward his bar. “Right, sorry. I forgot for a moment that you’re so very good, and I am not.” When he reached his liquor selection, he pulled a large bottle of Macallan from the top shelf and poured a double shot of the Scotch. “I suppose this is the end of our ersatz partnership, Sister? We have nothing in common after all.”

It hurt to hear him voice her own worries out loud. He wasn’t wrong. Everything about them was illogical. But dangerous as Lucifer was, she didn’t want to go back to her life without him in the waking part as well.

“We were pretty good at solving a murder.”

“Are you going to go all _Father Dowling_ _Mysteries_ now, Chloe?”

“Huh?”  
  


“I sometimes get bored in the daytime before _Lux_ opens and watch telly. It’s a terrible old TV show but it’s about a priest who solves murder. I suppose a duller _Murder She Wrote_.”

She blinked, not sure why her brain couldn’t grasp onto the image of the Prince of Darkness sacked out on this couch watching daytime reruns. Very old people ones at that. “What?”

“Well, sometimes bed partners go home, and I have to wait for new ones. A Devil needs rest for himself as well. It passes the time.”

She snickered. Was he serious? “Do you watch _Matlock_ too? Oh my God…you know what I mean, do you like have Werther’s butterscotch around her.”

“How dare you! I’m quite the inveterate sinner, Sister.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that, but really, ha!”

“Don’t mock me!”

She laughed and had to remind herself to rein it in eventually because she was afraid that she’d start and never stop, after all. Satan---that Satan---had the same taste in television as her grandma Beatrice, who lived in that old folks’ home out by Culver City.

“Oi! That was in confidence, Chloe. Don’t spread that around. It’ll ruin a bloke’s reputation.”

She wiped the tears from her eyes and nodded. “Oh, I’ll say. We _could_ do that. Do you want to be detectives?”

“Not really, although it was rather satisfying to get justice for Delilah. I don’t have an interest in it.”

“Really? You seemed very determined on the trail, and you did a good job.”

Lucifer chuckled. “If it kept you around, I’d get a police radio myself by rook or crook, and we’d start the P.I. paperwork right now.”

“I’d be game.”

He frowned at her, his shot glass halfway to his lips. “Why ever so? You know exactly what I am. You’ve made it clear you barely trust me. I assumed now that your obligation to Delilah’s memory was over, you’d want nothing to do with me.” He drained the rest of his drink in one quick gulp. “No one ever does.”

And that she knew well too, from how many times she’d seen him drunk and with tears in his eyes (no she had no idea how hellfire eyes did that either) and ranting at his father.

“I’d like to. I…maybe it’s like fate.”

“Don’t bloody believe in that.”

“I do, and maybe you need a little bit of law and order,” she said, gesturing to herself. “As well as a little bit of hotheaded determination to actually get things done. Seriously, get the blotter, get the radios, get whatever you need, and if you have another case you want to poke into, I’d be game. Heck, my friend Father Frank half-solved this for me anyway. We’d be an interesting team.”

“I don’t hang out with clergy. You’re the exception, Sister.”

She snorted. “He’s weirder than me. He was a touring rock pianist for years. He played for _The Rolling Stones_.” Chloe gestured to his piano. “He might even be better than you.”

Lucifer’s eyes definitely blazed red, whether he knew it or not. Ooh, she’d struck a nerve. “He is not. That’s flatly impossible.” Still the sulking Devil made his way back to the sofa and offered her his hand. “Then that’s the deal, is it? We can solve the crimes of L.A.’s seedy underbelly that the cops barely pretend to half-arse, and we can be friends?”

“Can we be?” she asked, swallowing hard at how badly she wanted in the daytime too. If he thought they were just dreams from an overactive imagination and too many (ugh) repeats of _Hot Tub_ , then maybe Lucifer didn’t feel the same way. God, she _shouldn’t_ feel this way. “I wasn’t sure you did friends as much as lovers.”

“Well, I don’t lie, and the offer to sleep together is freestanding, Chloe. I do love to take a nun from Him, but I also do fancy you. That said, I see your vows give you comfort and help you weather your father’s death. I can respect that. If you ever change your mind, I’ll take a tumble in the sheets immediately.”

She stood and shook her head. “The Devil does tempt, doesn’t he?”

“Always, Sister Decker. But have we a deal? I very much would like to be friends, and I have the feeling that you’re just bluffing about this Father Frank of yours. He can’t possibly be as good as I am.”

“You’re _threatened_ ,” she said, taking his hand, so smooth and still unusual to her, but no less warm than her dreams, in her own.

“I’m the best at _many things_ , Chloe, and I’m never threatened.” But there was a quiver to his voice that betrayed his confidence, and she had a feeling it was more about his uncertainty over being able to keep human friends than anything else.

“Good then, Lucifer, sounds like you have yourself a deal.”

He kept grasping her hand, after they’d ostensibly finished shaking. Leaning low so that his lips were just by her right ear, he whispered to her. And his voice was so low and husky that she felt most of her resolve crumbling with a few words. “If you ever change your mind, all you need do is ask, Sister.”

Chloe swallowed hard and dropped his hand. Even stepping back and putting distance between them did little to stop the heat flaring in her belly and the way she wished she could shift her legs to stop the need from throbbing in her core. Being near the Devil in person was far more enticing and dangerous than even the most vivid of her visions, and Chloe wasn’t sure how to deal with that.

But after five years, she was too weak…to embroiled in it now to say no to him.

Swallowing hard, and trying to ignore his smirk, Chloe shook her head. “No, just friends, Lucifer. That’s all I have to give.”

“If you say so,” he said. “But as I’ve said, I’m a Devil of my word, and all the parameters of our relationship are up to you.”

Dear Lucifer’s Dad in heaven, that was what she was afraid of.

**

“Sister Decker, I can’t thank you enough for coming in to give your statement.” Detective Espinoza said. “I had talked to a couple other soup kitchen volunteers who came forward to say that they thought Delilah had been there often before she died. They mentioned that you and she talked the most together.”

Chloe nodded and tried not to grimace at the sludge that passed for precinct coffee. And she thought the stuff at the convent was bad. “Yes.”

The detective nodded and leaned back in his seat at his desk. He wasn’t much older than she was and, if things had been different, with his wide eyes and calming voice, Chloe could almost see how she might have found him attractive.

“Great, did she by any chance mention anything about Barnes? The case against him is pretty airtight between the forensic accounting evidence we have now that we’ve been working backwards from that Morningstar ass…guy’s citizen’s arrest.”

_Ooh, so he and Lucifer don’t get along._

That wasn’t a surprise. Lucifer wasn’t exactly one for even God’s authority. Figured he wouldn’t get along any better with cops.

“That’s good.”

“But anything else we might get can help. So, did she mentioned Jimmy Barnes or possibly feeling unsafe because of him?”

“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t know even that she was _that_ Delilah. She looks pretty different in street clothes, and she was going by an alias.”

“‘Sammy,’ right?”

She nodded. “I’m sorry there’s nothing more I can add about Jimmy in particular. I…did you get a confession from him or did he lawyer up?” She blushed and looked at her hands. “That’s dumb. You probably can’t even answer that part.”

Detective Espinoza sighed. “Normally, no, but off the record, Sister Decker, I’ll say that if you know _anything_ else that can really help us, it would help. He’s not coherent, so getting any confession or plea deal won’t happen.”

“I don’t understand.”

And suddenly she felt like she was going to vomit up that crap coffee all over. Lucifer promised he wouldn’t hurt Jimmy. Had he lied? Had he given the man brain damage?

The detective leaned in closer. “I think he’s building up for some insanity plea, but honestly, I believe him. After the Morningstar guy brought him in…ever since, he’s been ranting about the Devil this and the Devil that. I mean, I’m a once a week mass-goer too, Sister, but he was convinced he’d seen the actual Devil in front of him. We had to get him transferred to a mental ward because he kept hurting himself. I mean, I sometimes see insanity defense as a total cop out, but this guy? He keeps bashing his head against the wall until he passes out. It’s bad and totally insane.”

Chloe tried to remember how to speak as she regarded the detective. “He what?”

Detective Espinoza shook his head. “I shouldn’t have said that much. I was just hopeful that with as much as you’d spoken with Delilah in the past that you’d maybe…just gathering as much evidence for a criminal case even if it ends up with him in a maximum lockdown asylum ward instead, you know.” He stilled and frowned at her. “You look so pale, Sister Decker. Is there anything I can get you? We have water bottles in the kitchen.”

She nodded. “Please, that would be great.”

The detective left after that, and she started shaking a bit as she watched him head to the kitchen. Then, she nearly hopped out of her seat when her cell dinged. Pulling it out, she almost dropped it when the name on the screen appeared:

_Lucifer_.

She activated her phone and scrolled through her latest text.

_Getting the P.I. paperwork is a bloody nuisance, but I did it_.

The rest was followed by a stream of emojis that she lost track of trying to understand after a championship trophy and hoops of fire. She shoved her phone back in her pocket and tried to get herself calm before the detective returned. Chloe had been a fool, and she’d forgotten who she was partnered with. Maybe the Devil never lied, but he certainly skated around the truth that he could literally drive humans insane too.

Sighing, she set her head in her hands and prayed. It had brought her equanimity before.

_Dear God, what am I supposed to do? And why did you bring me into your son’s life?_

Like always over the last five years, there was no answer, and maybe, for the first time, Chloe could understand a little why Lucifer resented his father so much. After all, most of the time, it felt like He was never there at all.


	5. Fine Print

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe makes a deal with the devil.

  1. **Fine Print**



She wasn’t sure how they’d gotten here.

No, scratch that. Chloe knew very well how all this had happened. It was just that a year ago, even when her marriage to Dan was crumbling and the hassles and then flat out harassment from the Palmetto case happened…when he’d sided with _everyone else_ , she couldn’t have seen it getting this bad. But it had. First the divorce, which was hard enough to weather with her already flagging career. Then…God, she could barely think of it.

The rush of air through the ventilator and the beeps of the various machines and meters in the room were the only noises in Chloe’s private hell. She could barely make out Trixie’s tiny form under all the tubes and wires. What she could see was heart breaking. Her daughter’s face was bandaged for the healing theoretically and to prevent infection, and it was hard to see much of her between that and all the apparatuses keeping her nominally alive.

Fucking Dan.

All he’d had to do was pay attention on his turn to watch Trixie. They’d brought her into the station before after school, but since Palmetto, he’d been more distracted too, less reliable. It was one thing to forget which day he was supposed to pick Trixie up from after school. It was another to let her run loose through a damn police precinct because he’d let his mind wander. Something far worse when Montgomery---the idiot---hadn’t made sure the weapons lock up was _actually locked_. An eight-year-old and an unwatched armory were a fatal combination or should have been.

All that negligence and what a mess they had now with her daughter on collection of contraptions to keep her alive and doctors who kept updating Chloe over the last eight weeks of what milestones were supposed to be “progress.” Basically, not much. As the neurologists laid out the facts patiently every day, Trixie’s case seemed hopeless. It wasn’t getting worse, but it was a terrible form of stable.

Brain dead.

The only thing keeping Trixie alive were the machines she was attached to. And Chloe couldn’t…she couldn’t bear to turn them off. But she wasn’t sure this was what her daughter would have wanted either.

It was all like being frozen. Too scared to move forward, too desperate without even this vigil in her life to think about pulling the cord.

There was a knock at the door, and Chloe just kept herself from reaching for her service revolver (she’d come from the precinct and switched off shifts with her mom) when Dan and a man she’d never seen before---one who stuck out like a sore thumb in a business suit in the ICU---slipped through the door.

She frowned. The other guy screamed _lawyer_ , but the divorce had been settled months ago. This wasn’t Dan’s other counsel for that. Maybe she was jumping to conclusions. At least, that was what Chloe hoped until the maybe-lawyer settled a sheaf of documents in her lap.

“Ms. Decker, I’m presenting you with the papers you’ll need, and I suggest you get an attorney who specializes in end of life care matters. We’ll see you in civil court soon.”

She blinked even as the lawyer stepped to the far corner of the room and looked like he wanted to be _anywhere_ else. Chloe flipped through the first pages and chewed back her nausea. Then, she stood up and dragged Dan into the hallway. Even if Trixie couldn’t hear…well, she wasn’t going to have a fight in front of her anyway.

However, she was more than happy to round on Dan out of what would have been their daughter’s earshot. “What the fuck is this?”

Dan swallowed hard, and she wondered how she’d ever fallen for him, how anything about him had held appeal. Now, God now, especially with the papers in her hand, all she could think about was what a rat he was. “Chloe, I don’t want her to keep going on like this.”

“You don’t want to? Well, I’m sorry our daughter’s trauma is inconvenient for you.”

He sighed and started to put his hands on her shoulders, but Chloe pulled back. “You talk to the doctors with me. You hear what they’re saying. She’s _not_ going to get better. She can’t. You want to keep her in a vegetative state for the next forty years or who knows how long? How is that a life, Chlo?”

She forced herself not to cry. Not with Dan, he didn’t deserve it. “You’re suing me so that you can turn her life support off. You son of a bitch! You’re the only reason that she’s---”

“And it’s eating me up.”

“Yeah, I can see. You waited a whole four weeks after the doctors told us about the probably no hope situation to get papers drafted and to try and unplug her. Are you kidding me?”

Dan rubbed at his chin and sighed. “That’s not our daughter in there. You know that. If she were…if you could actually talk to her and ask her what she wanted, you think our Trixie would say she wanted this?”

“ _Our_?” Chloe shook her head and started to pace. “No, _our_ implies you paid any fucking attention, Dan. You had one job. Just one. We’ve both watched her dozens of times in the precinct, but this is your fuck up. Now you’re trying to erase it. But my life…it doesn’t work like that. She’s my whole life; she’s _everything_ , and I am not giving up on her.”

Dan shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and sighed. “I don’t want this to get messy.”

“It’s been the whole time, ever since you took the precinct’s side in Palmetto.” She flung her arm towards Trixie’s room’s door. “How isn’t it messy? You ignored her when you were supposed to keep her safe, and she half-way blew her head off!”

“That’s not funny.”  
  


“No, it’s not, but it’s even worse that now you’re what? Suing to get it all erased? No. I’ll find my own attorney for medical stuff. I don’t know how I’ll pay them, but I’ll see you and your asshole attorney in court over this,” she said. “Now get out of my sight.”

**

Lawyers cost an arm and a leg.

Well, the good ones did. She’d been able to find a family attorney for a divorce for an affordable enough price. However, someone who was good enough to handle a thorny medical ethics case was also the type of lawyer who charged four figures _an hour_. Money that Chloe didn’t have, especially now that Trixie’s care was starting to max out the medical insurance and soon might somehow, someway be coming out of her pocket instead.

She’d been hunting for three weeks for someone to represent her, and she’d turned up nothing. It left her drained, depressed, and spacing out while drinking her coffee at eight p.m. in the hospital cafeteria. Her mom was sitting with Trixie and, for once, Penelope Decker had turned out to be a rock in a terrible situation. Chloe almost felt guilty for how resentful she’d been of her mom when she’d been a kid and her mom had been an even _bigger_ kid. However, without her mom these last few months, Chloe couldn’t have made it.

She took another sip of her now tepid coffee and sniffled. She’d thought her life had fallen apart with her professional reputation in tatters or with Dan and the divorce. What a terrible joke. Chloe hadn’t known Hell until her daughter ended up in the ICU. This was…it was untenable.

She was about to force herself up to go back to her shift with Trix when a tall woman in an elegantly tailored suit slid across from her at the table. The blonde pulled out a card and pushed it across the table. “I’m Charlotte Richards. I’m from the law firm of---”

“Oh, I know your firm, Ms. Richards,” Chloe bit back bitterly. “I had a case I built for three years against the Sarkeesians that evaporated because of your firm’s love for tying things up in technicalities and red tapes. There’s not a shark in the city you don’t defend.”

“The Sarkeesians are an upstanding family of merchants who import Persian rugs and other exotic goods into the country, nothing more.”

Chloe tore the card up and set her coffee down. “Yeah, right, and I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.”

Charlotte smirked, but that was the only indication Chloe got either way to indicate that the lawyer at least halfway recognized that her clientele were as dirty as they came. “Yes, well, I’m not sorry that I helped a family wrongly accused find justice.”

“Why are you even here?”

“I’ve heard you need a lawyer for your case.”

She blinked. What the hell? “Huh? You defend the dirty. You don’t do medical ethics.”

“I don’t typically, but it’s a large firm and we have the best lawyers in the state working for us. We have a few on retainer who can mop the floor with Herbert Allen. You’ll be able to yank all parental rights from your ex if you accept our help.”

“I don’t have the money---”

Charlotte shook her head. “You don’t have to pay a cent.”

Chloe frowned. “This isn’t suit against the LAPD for negligence---though it probably should be too. If I win, then I get control of one little girl’s healthcare solely. There’s no money in it for you, and honestly, in a city with costly lawyers, you all are the most expensive out there.”

“We’re also the best.” And there was no ego really in Charlotte’s words. It was said with the same inflection of saying the sky was blue or water was wet. It just was true. It was why every criminal or drug dealer in the city had them on speed dial. “I’ll be blunt, Ms. Decker. Allen’s a good attorney. Not our caliber, but he’s better than I suspect you can afford on your own. You should take my offer.”

“But nothing comes for free. What is it you really want?”

The attorney sighed. “I knew dealing with you would be complicated. I told him, but he insisted.”

“Who?”

“My associate. ‘Moonlighting’ isn’t exactly the term, but I have some side ventures I dabble in outside of my work for Richards and Wheeler. My benefactor in them is very powerful, and he wants to help. He’ll foot the bill for my services, and he has some options for caring for your daughter.”

Chloe’s throat was scorched from all the stomach acid flitting through it. “You don’t get something for nothing, and even if I met with your so-called ‘benefactor,’ Ms. Richards, well, the best anyone can offer is a long-term care facility for Trixie. I assume with the caliber of people you associate with that the cost is actually that I start fixing evidence and sabotaging testimony to let some mobsters slide.”

Charlotte actually laughed. “No, that’s not at all what I want. It’s not what he wants either. I admit, I don’t see yet what he thinks he can get out of you, Chloe, but that’s not my business. I relay the messages.”

“What?”

“I’ll represent you, and, trust me, we’ll win. Then, you and my boss can discuss some radical therapies for your daughter.”

“I’d love to think there’s something someone could do but short of a miracle, even I know she’ll never get better.”

Charlotte pulled a second card from her briefcase but this one wasn’t a plain, white linen card. Instead, it was a glossy violet of all things. “My boss has his methods. Consider this. If you want to go further with this offer, then tomorrow evening at this same time, go to the hospital chapel. He'll meet you there. Your call, but I have two children too. I know what I’d do for them, and I bet I know what you’ll do too.”

She passed the card to Chloe and stood.

Chloe picked up the object and skimmed it. It had to be a joke. “Lucifer Morningstar? You can’t be for real.”

“Oh, he is, and you’re out of options.”

**

She wasn’t sure what she expected when she entered the chapel that next evening. Chloe knew that this was foolish, that whatever someone who retained Charlotte Richards as their attorney was into was some serious slimy shit, but she hadn’t found anyone else to help her with the case. No one she could come close to affording, and if she tried to represent herself…she wouldn’t forfeit what was left of Trixie’s life like that.

So, dealing with whatever shady benefactor of Charlotte Richards had become her only option.

She’d Googled what she’d could and then accessed the LAPD database remotely for the rest. Morningstar, for lack of a better term, was a ghost. He was suspected to have his hands in a set of gambling and underground fight club ventures as well as allegedly was the host of raves that never met in the same location twice. But it was all whispers. Anyone who was associated with him who then got arrested and promised to squeal…well, within a day, they were always found in their cells raving and ranting about the Devil.

Which, sure, the probable crime boss had taken on quite the showy (and obviously fake) name, but he wasn’t the _actual_ Devil. After all, God, the Devil, Heaven…all of it wasn’t real. Except for possibly Hell. If there were a Hell, Chloe had been trapped in it for about three months.

What she hadn’t expected was to find a tall man in a bright purple suit playing the organ when she walked in. Actually, from what little she could tell, he was doing a pretty good job of it, and there was something hypnotic about watching him work, about watching his shoulders sway with the movement and his eyes close in concentration. His jaw went slightly slack as he played which gave a sense of ecstasy to his Patrician profile.

If the situation had been any less serious, Chloe would have found him handsome.

She coughed politely and slid into the pew closest to the organ. “Mr. Morningstar?”

He smirked back at her. “Oh, you don’t have to be so formal.” British too. God, that accent was killer. He stood and walked with more grace than should be legal to the pew and sat down next to her. Holding out his hand, he offered her the chance to shake it, which Chloe did. “Lucifer Morningstar. You can just call me ‘Lucifer,’ Detective.”

She sighed. “With all the sick leave I’ve been eating up lately, when I do get back to the LAPD, I won’t be a detective. I’m sure I’ll get busted back to uni probably anyway.” Yet another worry for her pocketbook and another strike against affording an attorney of Charlotte Richards’s caliber.

Lucifer tsked to himself. “I’ve had Charlotte brief me on some of the work you’ve done. You’re both an actual good cop, one with integrity, and have notable instincts. They’re jealous, darling.”

She hardened her gaze. “This isn’t about flirting with me. This is…I would say it’s about Trixie, but there’s nothing you can do to help her, and I know that if I accept this deal, Charlotte will at least win, but I’ll be fixing cases for both of you till I retire.”

Lucifer shook his head, and she found it hard not to stare too hard---or too hungrily---into his dark eyes. God, they seemed bottomless. “I don’t need you for that.”

“Then, what is it you need or want me for? I’m not an idiot. Whatever your business is, it’s hardly legal.”  
  


“Yes, that’s a granted, but I have a huge workload on me, and my right hand, Mazikeen, could eventually use the help. That’s true.”

“Work for you?” she stood then. “Never. I’m a cop. My dad was the best cop I ever knew. I _don’t_ work for criminals.”

Lucifer didn’t follow her, just lazily crossed one long leg over the other. “Well, you haven’t heard the terms of the deal. I think before you refuse me, you should think over all you might be passing on.”

“Like I said, my life forever trapped as a dirty cop. I…I can’t. I’m losing my daughter. I won’t lose my soul too.”

Lucifer considered that and shrugged. “Alas, that is part of the bargain. And a soul as pure---as good---as yours, Detective, is quite the draw. I can’t imagine how badly that will upset Him, but I’m sure it will be a delicious amount.”

She frowned. “Him who?”

Lucifer chuckled and under any other circumstance, she might have found that sound charming. Instead, it was like having ice water poured down her back. “My father. Elohim, Yahweh, or God. Pick your preferred name. Yes, I make no secret of it upfront. I am in the soul business. The requirement for the full deal---your daughter’s medical care and custody fully in your hands and denied to the douche you married as well as her complete recovery---would be both your servitude and your soul. It’s a fairly standard contract, but I deliver on my word. _Always_.” He stood but didn’t approach her. “And, of course, there will be a clause written to your approval that will make it quite clear that Trixie was it?” He grimaced at that. “Frightfully terrible name. However, there will be clear stipulations that her soul and her life after I fix her are not a part of the contract.”

Chloe shook her head. This fucking nutcase thought he actually was Satan. How had he convinced one of the most heartless and _ruthless_ defense attorneys in the city of the same thing? “You’re crazy.”

Lucifer adjusted his cufflinks and laughed again. “No, I am not. But if you allow Charlotte to chair your case, you’ll win. Then, I’ll have your offspring moved. From there, well, I’ve some tricks left to me, and when I promise a full recovery and a very healthy and long life after that, I can ensure it.”

“The doctors said---”

“What I offer is beyond the realm of human remedies. _Far_ beyond it. If you don’t take my offer, you know that your douchey ex will win the case and your daughter will die, don’t you?”

She couldn’t breathe. It felt like something huge---a vice, really---was clamping its way around her chest. “I…yes.”

“Then, Detective. I suggest you agree to my terms. We can even shake on it, and I’ll have Charlotte bring you the formal contract. But this is what I require---your soul and your faithful servitude---and in exchange your daughter will live a very long, very comfortable and fully healthy life. I think those are all quite fair terms.”

“But you can’t help her.”

He stepped closer to her with his palm out, and for a second, she caught a flash of something red and fiery in his eyes, something that couldn’t _possibly_ be there. But it was gone almost as soon as she noticed it, and Chloe shrugged it off. Morningstar was just another mobster, like so many she’d actually promised to put away and not enable. But Trixie was her whole life so what choice did she even have?

“Detective, make no mistake. The name’s _not_ an affectation. I am very much the Devil, and there is hardly anything I can’t arrange or make happen. Now, have we a deal?”

She hesitated over taking his hand. This went against everything she stood for. Because he would make her fix cases, she knew that. Because she didn’t even know what “helping Mazikeen” entailed, and because there was no way any of this was even truly possible. Devils didn’t exist; neither did souls. He couldn’t really make Trixie healthy again, but if she settled for being a crooked cop for the rest of her life, at least she’d be able to get full custody of Trixie, at least she could keep her baby on life support.

  
And there’d never really been a question of what her answer would be.

She took his hand, noting that it felt almost feverishly warm against her skin. “You have a deal.”

“Lovely,” he said, dropping the handshake. “Charlotte will be in touch. I should add that I’m no ogre. I’ve a grace period too, Detective. Five years.”

“Huh?”

“Five years after you have custody _and_ I heal your urchin. You can have five normal years with her, and then your debt to me comes due. Is that not reasonable?”

She frowned, not that she was complaining but she was confused. “Don’t you need me soon? Isn’t that why you sent Charlotte to collect me at all?”

“‘Soon’ is an interesting time frame for an immortal, Detective. Let Charlotte handle her end of the deal, and as soon as that daughter of yours can be moved to my care, I’ll help her. After that, well, I’m patient enough that five years’ time is nothing to me.”

“I guess it’s the run-up to get me used to a life of crime, huh?”

“Dearie me, you think rather poorly of me, don’t you?”

“Well,” she countered, putting her hands on her hips. “Am I wrong about that? At best, what I can find on you proves you’re a drug dealing, gambling crime lord who renders any witnesses who even try to speak out against you insane. At worst, you’re supposedly Satan incarnate.”

“Oh, darling, I _am_ Satan. But a deal is a deal. You get your heart’s deepest desire, but it has to come with a price, doesn’t it?”

“Nothing for free.”

He nodded. “Exactly, Detective. Don’t worry. Charlotte’s one of the best in the country. I wouldn’t have her soul as collateral either if she weren’t.” He gave her a slight bow and turned back to the organ. “Perhaps I’ll finish a few songs. I do love some Bach on the organ after all.”

She couldn’t stop the next phrases from coming out of her mouth, “But you’re the Devil. Why would you even want to be in a chapel at all?”

“Because,” he started, sitting down at the organ’s bench with a flourish. “It pisses dear old Dad off. There’s _nothing_ I live for more than that.” He gave her another tight nod. “Detective, you’re dismissed.”

Chloe didn’t need to be told twice. She gathered up her purse from the pew and hurried out of the door, trying hard not to focus on what she’d just done and whatever consequences might follow her because of it.

But if it saved Trixie somehow, through some impossible feat, then she didn’t even care.

**

Chloe assumed that when Lucifer offered to relocate Trixie to a facility for better care, that he had meant some exclusive hospital. What she hadn’t expected was to be standing out on a large veranda for one of his private estates up in the Santa Monica mountains, watching as the sun set and the stars---so overshadowed by light pollution in the heart of the city---started to shine above.

The room he’d provided Trixie was filled with all the same standard medical equipment, and since Charlotte had just won the case this afternoon, Chloe had wasted no time in having Trixie moved. Lucifer was already waiting at what turned out very much _not_ to be a hospital or private clinic, and now that her daughter was secured and she’d called her mom to give her directions to coming out tomorrow, Chloe was trying to catch a breath, to get some equilibrium back after six months of pure Hell.

A polite cough sounded behind her. “Detective, would you care for anything to drink. Even if the verdict was both inevitable and in our favor, you must be exhausted.”

She quirked her lips at that but did not turn to face him. “ _Our_ favor, huh?”

Light footsteps behind her and the so-called Devil had sidled up next to her, offering her a class of Scotch, no ice. “Well, I might have had a bit of a hand in all this. Charlotte is a pit bull, but as we both know, she doesn’t come cheap. Of course, I’ve an endless tab with her.”

“And what does she owe you back?”

“Soul, servitude. It’s very much a standard contract. Why she chose to work with me…well, that’s her own story to tell.” He waited for her to take the glass and sipped at his own Scotch afterwards. “Do you fancy them?” Lucifer gestured out to the sky with his free hand to clarify that he’d meant the stars.

Chloe took a deep breath and sipped the Scotch against her better judgment if only to calm her nerves. “The stars? They’re nice. When I was really little, my dad would take me camping once a year. Dan and I…we did that a few times for Trixie too.”

Lucifer nodded and she watched his Adam’s apple bob as he made the motion. If things were different, she’d have found him attractive. But they weren’t, and she knew that in five years, she’d owe him God knew what kind of dirty favors, that he’d been cold enough to exploit her in her deepest hour of need. “I made them, you know.”

She laughed, and it was a more broken sound than she’d hoped for. “Sure. We’re back to that again, right? You’re not just some shady crime lord, but you’re literally the Devil, and of course you made the stars.” She quirked an eyebrow at him. “When would you have had time to make stars when ruling Hell anyway. That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Lucifer means ‘Lightbringer.’ Back before I Fell, I was dear old Dad’s archangel in charge of lighting the heavens. So I did,” he gestured to a constellation that Chloe finally recognized as Orion. It had been years since the last time she’d star gazed with her dad after all. “I always enjoyed how you humans gave shape and meaning and mythology to them after. At best, they’re like a Rorschach test, but it says so much about you that you lot developed astrology of all delicious things.”

She rolled her eyes. Part of her was relieved and happy. No matter what she’d have to dirty her hands with in five years, her daughter was alive, in her sole custody, and Dan no longer had the right to make _any_ medical or care decisions about Trixie ever again. Part of her was frustrated with herself. Crime lord or not, Lucifer was clearly cracked. He really did _think_ he was the Devil, and still some small, microscopic part of her desperately wanted to believe he had some special cure up his sleeve, something---dear Christ--- _anything_ that would fix her girl.

But how could a man insisting he’d done the impossible and hung the stars do that?

“Detective, you’ve grown rather pensive.” Lucifer drained half his drink as he considered her. “I should also add that Charlotte offered to draw up a civil suit against the LAPD. Their reputation is sordid at best, and with the bad press they’ve been getting after that one cop was caught staging his other partner’s suicide---”

“Who?” She’d been on family medical leave for half a year. The gossip of the department had eluded her.

“Some bloke named Palloucci went after his partner. Quite the mess. At either rate, the LAPD would love less bad headlines and will settle quickly even if your husband has a role in contributory negligence, the blasted officer on duty still should have had the armory locked up good and proper.”

She couldn’t swallow or even breathe. It was too hard to give her answer because it was so very true. It wasn’t just Dan’s fuck up or even her own for trusting him. The LAPD had messed up too and an eight-year-old girl was paying for that.

“Yes, well,” Lucifer continued draining his Scotch. “She’ll be filing paperwork within the month. I suspect that you’ll make quite a chunk of change from that settlement as well, enough to secure your daughter’s future and then some.”

“Enough to keep her in the best convalescent care,” Chloe corrected, her tone harsh. She handed Lucifer her mostly filled glass. She was in no mood to try swallowing anything any longer. “I…it won’t go to college or weddings or anything more than nurse care around the clock and new machinery to keep her alive.”

Lucifer shook his head and, turning briskly on his heels, made a bee line for the door. Chloe spun and followed him in short order, taking a few steps for each of his ridiculously long strides.

“Now don’t be that way, Detective. I’m a Devil of my word, as you well know. So far, I’ve kept up my bargains and added a bit to sweeten the pot at Charlotte’s suggestion. I think she just enjoys going at the LAPD brass anyway she can, quite frankly.”

She shook her head as she followed him down the labyrinth of hallways in his huge estate until they came to Trixie’s room. Standing outside of it was an African American woman no taller than she was and dressed head to toe in leather. In her hands, the newcomer was carrying an engraved silver box. As Chloe watched the woman flip the lid, revealing a long, white feather.

“What the hell is this?” she asked, gesturing to a feather.

A pretty one to be sure, one that even as she stared at it seemed to glow with an inner light she couldn’t quite ignore. She blinked a few times, trying to pretend the golden glow was all a trick of her overtired mind, but there was something surreal about it. Chloe just wasn’t sure what.

The other woman shook her head but handed Lucifer the box. “Since you cut off your wings, you only have so many left. Are you sure you want this?”

He nodded. “Mazikeen, I’ve made my plans. Besides, be polite and say hello to Chloe Decker. Five years from now, she’ll be assisting you with all those special errands I require top side.”

Mazikeen glared at her. “I don’t need to have some human trailing me.”

Lucifer laughed, a sarcastic edge to it that Chloe didn’t like. “Yes, a ‘human.’ Surely, you know me better than that Maze. She’ll be your second when the time comes because you’re amazing, darling, but even you can’t be everywhere at once. Be honored that I found someone I think worthy of your attention to be delegated too.”

Mazikeen shook her head and spit something terse back at him in a low, guttural language that Chloe couldn’t identify. Then, she switched to English and frowned back at her. “I’ll believe it when I finally see it. Just stay out of my way, Decker, and I hope you can take orders like a good minion when the time comes.”

Chloe swallowed hard. “I keep my end of my deals too.”

Mazikeen shrugged. “I think we’ll see.” The woman regarded Lucifer once more time. “What a bum deal this is. She’ll prove useless enough, believe me.”

“Oh ye of little faith,” Lucifer chided. “You’ll have five years to park that ego of yours.”

“I’m the strongest and fiercest of the Lilim, my king. Don’t forget that.”

He inclined his head toward Mazikeen, and his voice was as ice when he spoke again. “I haven’t, but never forget _what_ I am. I have procured this deal and have spent effort and resources to do so.” He emphasized his point by holding up the silver box to seal it. “Trust me, and trust that I think Detective Decker will make an invaluable asset to our earthly operations.”

Mazikeen’s gaze, rife with condescension, flickered to Chloe again. “I hope so, Lucifer.”

She didn’t miss the way the other woman’s boots stomped down the hall upon her exit. Lucifer waited until Mazikeen was long out of sight before turning his attention back to Trixie’s room. “Well, dearie me, that was a bit fraught wasn’t it? I am sure when the time comes, you and Maze shall get along…eventually. However,” he added, straightening the lapels of his immaculate suit. “I believe you’ve waited long enough to cure your daughter. Let’s get on with it, shall we?”

She trotted after him even as he opened the door and approached Trixie’s bedside. No matter where she went or which facility housed her, Chloe’s little monkey was little more than a collection of tubes and wires, of bandages around her damaged skin and skull to keep infection from encroaching. She was still so small, that she seemed to disappear under the ventilators and other machinery nominally keeping her alive.

“It’s still a feather, Lucifer,” she countered, even if the thing seemed to glow, which was bizarre.

“Correction, it is my feather, and still flows with the power of the Demiurge, though that is dimming somewhat. If I so will it, it will do as I Command, and what I wish is for your daughter to be healthy and whole.”

Chloe’s eyes darted helplessly around the room from the feather now in his right hand to her daughter’s inert form even to the wheeled tray in the corner that seemed to of all insane things contain two chalices of pure silver and what seemed like red wine. None of this made sense, and she wasn’t sure she could go through this, could watch him place a feather on Trixie just to have---of course---nothing happen.

There were no miracles.

Not for her, at least not since she was nineteen and her father was shot on what was supposed to be a routine patrol.

“Don’t. This is crazy,” she said. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, Lucifer, but this isn’t _Dumbo_ , and there aren’t magic feathers. You can’t; it’s cruel to pretend.”

He shook his head and before she could object pressed the white feather to her daughter’s forehead. At first, nothing happened and Chloe was about to jump forward and yank it from his hands when a bright light, one so strong and golden she had to close her eyes like before an eclipse, engulfed the room. While she was still reeling from the after images and the blinding light, the machines in the room went haywire, beeping and whirring.

By the time Chloe opened her eyes, Lucifer was helping pull the tubes from Trixie and sitting her daughter---who without her bandages looked as she always had, just as pink and rosy---up in the bed.

“Well, there we are now, urchin. Be careful now.”

Trixie looked between them and her eyes were wide, bright with unshed tears too. “Mom? Mom, what happened.”

She couldn’t believe it. This wasn’t possible. There was no way _any of this_ could happen. But she’d seen it. Hell, she was _hearing it_ too. A magical glowing feather, and now her daughter was healthy and restored in a way that the best neurologists in Los Angeles had sworn was impossible. Chloe rushed to Trixie’s side and swept her little monkey up in a hug. She planted kiss after kiss over her daughter’s cheeks and forehead, hoping that this was real, and deciding if this were some dream she’d fallen into after the trial that she never wanted to wake up.

“Mom? I was…I didn’t mean to sneak into the gun locker at the precinct, but it was cool and…” Trixie frowned. “Am I in the hospital?”

Lucifer took a few steps back, and if Chloe had to guess, of all things, the Devil (still couldn’t be, could it?) seemed nervous around a child. “No, you’re not. You at my home, and you were very sick, spawn, but you’ll be better now. I promise you that, just as I promised your mum.”

Chloe hugged her daughter tightly and the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

Lucifer offered her a tight smile and something swept across his expression that she couldn’t quite place. For a moment, it almost seemed like regret. “I honor my contracts, Detective.” Before she could say anything else, Lucifer strode to the wheeled tray and picked up both the wine glasses. “Now, Detective, I do require that you partake in a celebratory drink of course. Alas, it’s not suitable for the urchin, but I can have Maze sent out for anything you’d like, any sweet you can imagine, child.”

Trixie shook her head. “I just feel tired. Maybe some water?”

He nodded. “Probably for the best, might take you a while to get used to food again.” He turned and focused the attention of his dark eyes on her. “Detective,” he said, bringing the chalice first to his lips. In the background somewhere, a clock was chiming up a storm, and Chloe had no idea how it had become midnight already. “to you, dear Detective, and our pending partnership. Now, I must request that you drink up, every drop, please.”

“I don’t think I want to drink either.”

He shook his head, and his eyes were even more intense and penetrating than before as he regarded her. “That’s part of the deal. A drink to seal it all. It’s hardly poisoned, Chloe.” He drained his own in several long draughts to prove his point, and Chloe forced her brain to ignore how long his neck was, how attractive the arch of it was. “Your turn.”  
  


She did as she was asked, and the wine was mostly pleasant at first, although she generally preferred a good white. However, there was still an under taste there, something musky and almost metallic that created a bad after taste on her tongue. But her daughter was safe and healthy, and she would honor any conditions of Lucifer’s deal if it would keep Trixie safe.

After all, Trixie was all that mattered.

**

She’d held Trixie for hours, rocked her in her arms and promised that everything would be alright, and it would be. Now that she had sole care of her daughter and could keep her safe, now that Trixie was healthy all because of a feather. That made no sense. Well, it made perfect sense because the only actual answer was that Lucifer Morningstar was exactly who he said he was and not just a mobster or a crime lord.

No, to do something like that, to heal with magic for lack of a better term, he _had_ to be the Devil.

When Trixie had fallen asleep in bed, curled around her Miss Alien doll, Chloe had slipped from the room, promising herself she wouldn’t be away from Trixie long. It made no sense, but Chloe felt that if she even let her monkey out of her sight that everything would fade away, as if Lucifer’s cure had been nothing but a mirage.

Still, she needed to figure out what she’d really done, just what she’d agreed to.

After all, until that damn feather, Chloe had never believed in heaven or hell or any of it before. But now she had sold herself to the evil side. Sighing and ignoring the way her hands shook, Chloe snuck down the hall and into the main den. Lucifer was sitting there, listening to something classical that she couldn’t place over the sound system. She jumped a foot in the air when she saw him, and for a moment, Lucifer’s eyes seemed to flash red in irritation.

But she must have imagined that, right?

“Detective, I expected a bit more steel from you.”

“I…you really are the Devil!”

He shrugged and took a sip of what she assumed was whiskey from his tumbler. “I’ve never hidden that fact. Our entire arrangement is predicated on that, but, like I said, you’ve five years to enjoy all the time you can with Beatrice. Even afterwards, you’ll be with her, just in my service. My time frame is a bit more long term than a mortal’s.”

“Will I have to torture people?”

“Not humans. Their souls go to Hell but lower level demons or their own guilt deals the punishment. I need help for my empire here, some persuading here, some muscle there. You know L.A. well, and you’re tough.” He set his glass down and leaned forward. “Besides, you caught my eye long ago, Detective.”

“How?”

“The coverage of that shooting of that cop Graham. I could see the cover up from a mile away just by reading the gaps in the reporting. You seemed to acquit yourself honorably in all of that. I prefer to have a servant with a moral code.”

She snorted. “Charlotte Richards is the scariest, least ethical lawyer in the city, and that Mazikeen person looks like she breaks kneecaps and asks questions later if ever.”

“Oh, she’ll got for snapping spines first, don’t be daft,” Lucifer admitted.

Chloe tried not to vomit then and there.

  
“However, Detective. I’ve need of someone who comes at the world from a different angle. An enforcer, sure, an agent for things due to the rules of heaven and hell, I cannot touch, assuredly so. Truly, though, I’d like your counsel. I think you’d be helpful for that.”

“The Devil wants a conscience as long as she breaks kneecaps too?”

“On occasion or perhaps more than that,” he conceded.

“I won’t do it.”

He finished his drink and somehow had lost the buoyancy in his step from earlier in the night. Why would he be upset? She was the one who realized fully now that she’d sold her soul to a monster.

“You will because there are rules. What I did will be undone---and even I can’t stop that---unless you assume the mantle I’ve given you in five years’ time.”

“You can’t just kill Trixie because---”

“Deals with the Devil are ironclad. There is always fine print in the contract. Charlotte elucidated it for you in writing at least. Did you not read it thoroughly?”  
  


Chloe raked a hand through her tangled hair and started to pace. “I haven’t slept in months, and I read most of it. Then it just got too much legalese and I…”

“Yes, well, I can’t be held responsible when humans do not read their terms.” He quirked his head at her. “How far did you get?”

“The second page. I just wanted Trixie safe and better. It’s all I want.”

“And it’s what you shall have. After Charlotte wins your suit against the LAPD, your daughter truly will want for nothing as icing on the cake.”

Chloe stopped pacing. “But you’ll always have my soul.”

“Were you doing anything with it before?”

“You bastard. You tricked me!”

“I offered you succor and salvation for your urchin that no other being could or would. It’s more than an even trade. Could you actually feel as if you still had a soul, if she perished?”

She stopped and watched warily as Lucifer stood and crossed the expanse of the room between them. When he came to stop in front of her, he was so close that every time he breathed that his chest touched against her own. Chloe should have moved but she was too terrified to step back.

“She’s my world.”

“Then I thought not. Detective, you’ve given up so much but what Beatrice or any of her progeny, should she have them, will gain from that exchange will be unparalleled. Set up for generations, and I’ll see to that in perpetuity. Yes, the work ahead of you is not pleasant, but being a mother is rarely that, is it?”

“Like you’d know anything about children.”

“Fearsome, sticky creatures, worse than half my demons,” he said. “I confess I do not.”

“Then you don’t know me.”

“I see what you wanted, and what moves you. You’d die for the urchin, and I’ve asked less than that, if you think about it.”

“I don’t think I believe you.”

He shrugged. “I guess we’ll see, but the contract is ironclad. Don’t try and break it, Detective. You won’t like testing my mercy, I assure you.”

Chloe shuddered even as he stared at her, those dark eyes of his unblinking and unremorseful. “Was Palmetto and my desperation it? Were those the two reasons you wanted me.”

Lucifer leaned low and she stepped back the moment his lips touched hers. “Well, quite a rebuff there, I’ll admit. However, Detective, I suppose we have quite a time together for you to know exactly why I picked you, but for now, my reasons are my own.”

She wiped angrily at her mouth and shook her head at him. Part of her itched for her side arm. It probably wouldn’t do any good but leveling him a bit might be cathartic. “Go to Hell!”

“Oh, already been there, and soon, Detective, you’re going to join me.”

**

She’d been a fool.

After the settlement came in and months’ of never-ending nightmares plagued her, Chloe had run. Fled for her life and for Trixie’s.

  
Chloe had used what knowledge she had on going off the grid from her work as a cop to do the same. She’d moved the funds to a secret account offshore in the Cayman’s, withdrawn a huge chunk in cash to travel with, and run to Europe within a year of Trixie’s recovery. Because Lucifer couldn’t really be the Devil, but a fucking feather couldn’t heal a girl with irreparable brain damage either, yet it had.

And yes, Chloe was usually a woman of her word, but with only four years left to save her soul and prevent a life of servitude to the Prince of Fucking Darkness, she’d run.

It was how she found herself, setting a homemade chocolate cake before Trixie in the middle of a no-name town in Ireland. It wasn’t her daughter’s birthday, but the fifth-year anniversary of Trixie being healed by Lucifer’s feather. Honestly, a different kind of birthday. Chloe had taken off early from her job as a clerk in the town book shop to bake her pre-teen a ridiculously large and overly sugared chocolate confection (complete with extra fudgy icing) and was presenting it to her now.

Trixie rolled her eyes as she was wont to do these days and chuckled. “Mom, you don’t have to celebrate this every year. I’m better you know? I’m gonna stay better.”

She winked at her monkey. “So, you’re saying I can just skip this step and take the cake into the office tomorrow, share it with Maureen instead?”

Trixie grabbed a knife and cut into her bounty. “I didn’t say that and holy crap!”

“Monkey don’t swear.”

“Mom, there’s a guy behind you.”

Chloe turned and pulled the knife from Trixie’s hand. Brandishing it in front of her, she glared at Lucifer Morningstar, who had remained unchanged in the almost five years since she’d seen him.

“Leave!”

Lucifer shook his head. “You haven’t even offered me cake yet. Besides, that’s awfully rude of you. I waited half the day in _Lux_ for you to come to me. Took a few calls and a bit of Mazikeen’s tracking skill, but I’d say I found you.”

“How did you even get here? The door was locked.”

Lucifer grinned, a feral look that made Chloe’s heart skip several beats. “I have my ways, Detective. However, from the outside, it appears that you might be having second thoughts on our deal. Unfortunately, that can’t be changed.”

Trixie jumped up and huddled up next to her. “You have to go.”

Lucifer sighed. “Urchin, how quickly you forget me. I helped you get better, made you good as new, and now you’re going to snap at me.” He sighed again. “And this is why I abhor children on principle. They’re a bit too disrespectful for my taste, although some rebellion is good for the soul,” he admitted.

“Leave my mom alone!”

“Well, aren’t you the fierce one. I hope you’re like your mother. I’ve recruited her for quite the intensive position. I’ll need fire like that for the long haul.”

Chloe shoved her body between her daughter and the Devil. “You can’t hurt her.”

“I wouldn’t. That would void our deal. However, it’s been five years, and it’s time for you to come to Los Angeles again and work for me. You gave your word and signature on that if memory serves. So, Detective, that’s what we’ll do.” Lucifer pulled back his shirt sleeve and eyed his Rolex. “Besides, things are about to get rather messy in a few minutes for you personally, Detective. I suggest that you send the urchin to bed. I am _not_ here to harm either of you, but I cannot stop what has been set in motion either. It’s been brewing for years.”

Chloe wanted to ask this man---this demon---what he was even talking about when horrible pain twisted through her gut, as if red hot pokers were being jammed into her intestines. She doubled over and screamed in agony. “Trixie! I…go to your room!”

It was all she could get out before falling to the floor and curling up into a ball, even as great cramps racked her body, forcing her to writhe and scream.

Her daughter, who did take _too much_ after her, started to yell at the Devil. “You hurt her! You can’t hurt my mom, and you can’t have her either!”

Lucifer tsked to himself. “Child, this is for your mother’s sake and her own modesty. I request you retire to your room. Within the hour, she’ll be fine, and then we’ll discuss the arrangements for moving you _both_ back to Los Angeles. I’m no ogre, merely looking for my end of the deal. You mother and you will have lovely accommodations in the apartments I own below my own penthouse at _Lux_ , and should you choose, you can attend any private school or magnate in the City of Angels that you want.”

“You can’t hurt her!” Trixie shouted.

Chloe breathed in harshly. The pain was getting worse and her vision was starting to black out. “Trixie, please, do what he asks. I’ll be better.”

Her daughter’s hand on her shoulder felt like being scalded. “But Mom---”

“Go, now. Lock your door and don’t come out till I get you, monkey.”  
  


Lucifer didn’t move but did add. “Go along now, urchin, shoo.”

Trixie kissed her temple before rushing fast up the stairs, her sneakers slamming on the wood as she ran. Chloe couldn’t focus her hearing enough on anything to see if the lock had been slid in to place but she hoped to God it had. Although God had no place here, did He?

And still the pain continued, white hot and tearing through every part of her body until she finally passed out, moaning her agony as she did.

When she blinked awake, she found herself on the sofa and Lucifer hovering over her with a glass of water and, of all odd things, the mirror that had once been hanging over her sink in the first-floor bathroom. If anything, that monster looked anxiously back at her.

“I…what happened?” she asked, and then she stopped. Her voice sounded wrong somehow, lower and far raspier than it was supposed to be.

“Detective, I was serious when I said that tonight had been set in motion five years ago. The wine you drank was laced with the blood of Lilith, the first demon, because I have use of your skills, but I need them augmented by the strength of a proper Lilim.”

“A what?” she wheezed.

“Lilim, the strongest demons in Hell, like Mazikeen. That blood has been working its way through your system as once, long ago, it worked through Charlotte’s. As it will work through others who make deals with me. I wanted you to understand that once the deal was fulfilled—that once you drank---even my own power cannot undo it. It is as it is, and your servitude is guaranteed to me. However, I meant it too when I said I wasn’t trying to be cruel either. Your accommodations will be luxurious and your child, as we have discussed before, will want for nothing, neither will her progeny. I…” he swallowed and looked down at the floor. “I just needed you to understand.”

Chloe took in a ragged breath and, Christ, even her _breathing_ sounded wrong. “I don’t though. Lilim?”

Lucifer swallowed again and held up the mirror before her. “I suppose it’s best if you see for yourself. Now, I can help teach you how to glamour yourself as Maze and Charlotte do, so you can still pass as human for business and with your offspring. But you gave me your soul, Detective, and human you are no longer.”

Nausea roiled through her as she bolted upright and stared at the mirror, and if her stomach were normal, Chloe was sure she’d have vomited but all she could do was shudder and dry heave. Her hair, such as it was, had fallen out in great patches across a mostly bald scalp. Her eyes were milky with cataracts and her skin was blue and bloated, as if she were a corpse who’d washed up from the Los Angeles river weeks after it had been dumped. Glancing down at her hands, she saw the same warped, wrinkled skin all over them, the cyanotic tint to her flesh.

“What did you do?”

Lucifer set the mirror down. He slid onto the sofa beside her and took both of her hands in his. She could feel the warmth of them but not much else. Jesus, she could barely feel anything. “The deal was struck. I was explaining that, and it’s why you couldn’t just run. It was already happening the day I helped the urchin. As I’ve said, with Lilith’s blood in you, it just took time for you to become as you are now.”

“A demon?” she rasped, and even her voice was the stuff of nightmares.

“Yes.”

Then, he shocked her further by _changing_. With a few seconds, the Lucifer she’d known was replaced by a creature with hellfire eyes—quite literally---and a scalp and face scarred and furrowed deeply by burns.

“Glamour. It means that you can call on an illusion for yourself, for your whole body to pass amongst the mortals. I’ve done it for eons. It’s not that difficult.”

“You did this to me.”  
  


“To be rather fair, I offered you a deal and saved your child’s life. Everything has a price, and this was the one for young Beatrice.”

“You didn’t say I’d become a demon!” she shouted and the shriek that erupted from her throat was like the squeal of a wild animal.

“No, I did not, but I am rather curious as to what you thought I meant when I said I wanted your soul. Demons…Lilim…lack them. So that’s all part of the exchange. This is what you are now, Detective, and it’s what you wanted.”

“I didn’t want this!”

He quirked his head at her, red eyes glittering menacingly. “Wasn’t it? You wanted your child alive and healthy. You requested a miracle no other being could perform save my father or my brother, Michael, and to put it rather bluntly, Detective, the life of one, human child is below their paygrade or their concern.”

“But the Devil wanted to help.”

He nodded. “I’ve many reasons, and all becomes clearer in time. Now, Chloe, it will do your child no good to see you like this.”

“Because you’ve made me a monster.”

He shrugged. “It would be best not to say that in front of Charlotte or Mazikeen. Charlotte’s grown accustomed to her situation, and Maze was born Lilim and is fiercely proud of it.”

“I’m hideous!”

He smirked at her through yellowed teeth, and sharks had kinder grins. “Who isn’t, Detective? Now, focus on what helps you _not_ scare your urchin, and we’ll go from there.” Through all of this, she noticed he was still clutching her hands. “Close your eyes and focus on what you used to look like. Again, it’s fairly easy to turn this on and off. You merely have to want it. We’ll practice more over the coming weeks till it’s reflexive.”

She closed her eyes but still shivered. “I can’t…how can I ever look normal again?”

“You heard me, Detective. Just take a few deep breaths, well, such as you can, and think of what you were. Ooh, if you need help, I have a copy of the at delightful _Hot Tub High School_ back at my penthouse.”  
  


Despite everything, she cracked one eye open and glared at him, hazy as he was through her cataracts. “No, just no.”

“Well,” he said. “Then hop to it, chop-chop. I know you can do this.”  
  


She wanted to tell him about so many things he could do and also where he could shove his _Hot Tub_ DVD, but she closed her eyes again and focused, thought of what she’d looked like on her wedding day, when she’d spent time being fussed over by photographers and stylists her mom had called in favors for. Anything, even through her fear, not to have Trixie see her like _this_.

Chloe couldn’t bear it.

The power of the glamour worked through her slowly, like an electric current over her skin. Her breathing eased, sounded normal, and she could actually detect the pressure and also overall smoothness of Lucifer’s hands over hers too. Opening her eyes, she quirked her head at him. He was as she’d first met him as well, nothing obviously wrong about him.

“Did I do alright?”

He reached down and stroked a long wave of golden hair back from her face, taking his time as he did it so she could see the strand for herself. “You were marvelous, Detective. I…I know this is all quite a shock.”  
  


She pulled away from him and crossed her arms over her chest. “You did this. You knew this would happen, and you took advantage of my grief to screw me. _You_ stole my soul and made me a monster.”

“You’re in rather good company, then, Chloe.” He huffed and then stood up. “However, it was a fair trade, and you were given the chance to say no. This is as it is, and I expect my services rendered. I have wet works on occasion and, alas, the rules of Heaven and Hell dictate that only demons can do that for me. I’ve business ventures that need overseen and enemies from other pantheons troubling me of late. You’re needed. Your daughter is healthy and will have _every_ opportunity in life. It is time you repaid your debt. Is that understood?”

“I hate you.”  
  


He laughed and pulled a cigarette holder from his inside jacket pocket. Silver of course. When wasn’t everything of his as valuable as possible?

“I’ve heard that since before there was a Garden of Eden. You’ll find, Detective, I’m quite used to be abhorred. Now, I’ll grab a quick smoke, and you should work on setting your urchin’s fears aside. Tomorrow, we pack you up and fly home to Los Angeles. Don’t forget that.”

In a few, long strides, he was gone back out the door.

Chloe was tempted then to take the damn mirror, still mocking her from the floor with her perfectly normal reflection and smash it into a million pieces. However, she could neither afford to scare Trixie nor tempt seven years of bad luck. She was already rolling in it.

Instead, Chloe set her head in her hands and tried to cry but her eyes could no longer muster forth tears. However, Chloe shook and sobbed, all while trying not to think of bloated, blue skin and how horrified her daughter would be if she ever found out about the demon she'd become.


	6. Interview with the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> YA novelist Chloe receives quite the miffed critic on her doorstep. Or a bit of a fluffier **+1** to end on!

**Interview with the Devil**

Sometimes Lucifer thought there were downsides to reconciling with his family. No, scratch that. There were more than a few thorns in his backside that came from having Amenadiel---of all angels---and Azrael back in his life. As far as his brother went, the First Born was still pedantic and prone to platitudes, but Lucifer’s biggest problems with Amenadiel sprang from having to be exposed to a kindergartner for weekly family dinners. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with Charlie. He was fine as far as five-year-olds went. But that wasn’t saying much. Lucifer had suffered with more than one suit ruined by muddied hands grasping at his trousers.

Azrael was worse.

Oh, sure she was his favorite sister so the one he’d been pleased to reconcile with first. But then… Well, then, she’d dragged him somehow into consulting work as a side favor to her best friend (and mortal) Ella Lopez, who was a forensic scientist for the LAPD. This spiraled into trivia nights, binge watching parties of TV series usually reserved for basement dwellers, and even being dragged more than once to _the_ Comic Con in San Diego. Alright, so that wasn’t so awful. Whenever he went, well, he _did_ make interesting bedfellows, not that a gentleman ever shagged and told. But he’d been tamed a bit between reluctant and very infrequent uncle duties and acting as an upright citizen, helping to stop crime of all things, and actually finding justice for the wronged.

Punishment had been more of his thing. Orders from Dad and all that, and now he was practically a white hat.

Not a nerd, of course, but Rae Rae and Miss Lopez were still trying their best to convert him.

It was why he was not amused when his sister arrived in his flat a few hours before _Lux_ opened with a thick tome clutched to her chest and a Cheshire cat grin planted on her face.

“Lu, you have got to read this!” she chirped, tucking her wings away and handing him the book.

It was door stop size but hardly a classic of literature. (Lucifer was more than orgies on occasion, and he’d always had a weakness for artists. He was well-read and, frankly, had inspired some of the best books out there.) This volume was _not_ one of them. As he arched an incredulous eyebrow back at his sister, Lucifer took the book and stared at the cover.

It wasn’t too ostentatious, just plain black background with slim, pale, and feminine hands holding up a pomegranate. Its title read _Midnight Sins_ , and Lucifer chuckled a little at his sister. As if he weren’t already the expert on any plane about sin and debauchery; he doubted this book could teach him about either.

“Is this a bodice ripper, Azrael? I admit that I didn’t see you as the type. What about all those dreadfully long elf books you like?”

“ _Lord of the Rings_ , dude. Anyway,” she said, hopping up with a bit of struggle at one of his bar stools. “Just skim the back.”

He groaned. Her smile was too broad for this to be good news. “Yes, well,” he began, flipping the book over. “ _In the small town of Paduca, Oregon, high school junior Jane Meadows has a secret…_ ” Lucifer laughed. There was everything asinine in the Angel of Death reading teenage claptrap. “Oh, dear little sister, have some standards.”

She snorted. “I’m sorry. Maybe I’ll start marathoning terrible and ancient teen movies like _American Pie_ and _Fast Times at Ridgemont High_ instead.”

“First, those are inferior choices. I’ve always been rather fond of _Hot Tub High School_ , myself. Second, at least those have nude scenes. It’s something. This is…” he paused as he skimmed the rest then chucked the book back at Azrael, who caught it easily. “This is libelous tripe! How dare some doe-eyed author somewhere sully my name with a teen romance.”  
  


Azrael, who had been moderately good at keeping a straight face so far, finally doubled over in laughter. “I know, right? Ella has been reading all sorts of paranormal young adult books---YA---cause she’s writing a book about a girl who sees ghosts. She was going to start with it just being a forensic scientist and her ghost friend, but she thought YA might be more fun. She and I breezed through this really bonkers one called _Class of 3001_ last month, and that author recommended this debut novel cause she liked it so much. It was totally worth it.”

Lucifer’s eyes flashed as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, I’ll have to thank Miss Lopez personally next time I’m called into the precinct. How dare this…” he snatched the book back and scanned the cover. “…this C. J. Espinoza sully my reputation. It has taken me _eons_ to be the paragon of all things sinful. She’s---”

“How do you know it’s a woman?”

“Oh, I can tell. This type of fluffy bunny fantasy of the Devil---of _me_ \---as a high school student is purely female.”

Azrael snorted. “Sure, tell yourself that. What? Is it that much dumber than what you actually do?”  
  


“ _I_ happen whilst on holiday to run a successful and very debauched night club. And have lots of sex. I feel that lives up to my actual reputation quite nicely.” Lucifer huffed as he finished skimming the dust jacket. “I do not, and I _repeat this_ , I do not pose as a high school boy and seduce unsuspecting drama students. How utterly ludicrous.”

“It’s just a book, dude. And, I mean, to be fair, you also spring for tickets for me and Ella to do SDCC yearly now _and_ solve crimes. You’re not exactly the King of Hell these days.”

He let his eyes simmer at a higher level, one that might have at least gotten Amenadiel to take a step back, but his little sister loved pushing all his buttons and, honestly, as the Angel of Death, Azrael had seen worse than he. “I am not some pedophilic miscreant either.”

“Gross, Lu. Besides, it’s kind of romantic. Plus, Ella read this article in _EW_ last week, and this sucker’s gonna be a movie!”

_How dare they!_

Lucifer grabbed his nearest bottle of Scotch and took a long draught. “Well, that is simply unacceptable. I’ll have to do something about this.”

“Like that time you called an IP lawyer about the purple devil emojis, and she just laughed and hung up on you?”

He sighed, letting the rage and flame die from his eyes. They never worked on Rae Rae, and it was rather demeaning when he failed to get her to cower. “No. I learned my lesson there. I don’t need a solicitor---”

“You are still _not_ British.”

“And you’re not from San Francisco. I like this accent,” Lucifer corrected. “However, I will need to have a long chat with this Miss Espinoza. She has everything utterly pear-shaped here. If she’s going to make a film and attach my name to it, then I should set the record straight.”

Azrael chuckled. “Dude, there are like tons of horror movies about you. It’s kind of its own racket.”

He sighed at that.

For all his bravado and, to be fair, despite all the ways he milked and owned his persona, those films rarely sat well with him. They were just more of the same---painting him, the once and truly former Lightbringer, as the scapegoat for all of humanity’s sins. As if he’d wanted to be cast out or to be blamed for _everything_ from now until the end of time. Miss Lopez, the lovely woman, had figured that out about him early on in their friendship. Even if Azrael had liked to keep films like _The Exorcist_ and _End of Days_ in movie night rotations, Miss Lopez had vetoed them long ago. She’d always said it was because they didn’t blend well with her Catholic faith.

But more than once, she’d given him extra concerned looks at crime scenes that involved cults (it was L.A. and, alas, had happened more than once) or on Halloween, which as a holiday sat poorly with him. Too many damned devil masks about, and he had _never_ had horns. All more useless slander.

“I can’t fight every film.” He smirked to her. “I have called in favors once in a great while, of course. Used Mazikeen as an intermediary on earth once to at least get Al Pacino to play ‘me’ in _The Devil’s Advocate_. However, a teenage Old Scratch is unforgivable.” He stood and gathered up his jacket. “I shall speak with the author as soon as possible.”

“What? You’re gonna stalk her?”

  
“I’m going to pay her a visit, dear Azrael. Don’t wait up,” he said, heading to the garage and, not for the first time, wishing he still had his wings. Would have made the next part a bit faster.

**

Chloe sighed and then sighed again. She’d had her computer on and the voice recording software set up for most of the day. Trixie would be home in an hour at best from clarinet practice, and she had promised herself and her agent that she’d have the first three chapters and the proposal for _Midnight Confessions_ , book two of her series, ready by Friday. It was almost end of the day on Tuesday, and her ideas weren’t coming.

It shouldn’t be this hard.

Though, when she’d been lucky enough to get the first book done, she’d set it up as a stand-alone novel. Now, with the studio’s bid and talks of a trilogy of films in the works…well, she had to suddenly come up with two more ideas to extend the adventures (or misadventures depending on how you looked at it) of Jane and Lukas.

She was coming up with bupkis.

When a knock sounded at her front door, Chloe stood up with relief. Making her way to her front door steadily, Chloe paused on the other side of the wood and called out. “Hello? Did you need me to sign for a package or something? I wasn’t expecting anything today.”

A fancy British voice, muffled slightly through the wood, answered her. “Dearie me, no I don’t have a parcel for you, Miss Espinoza.”

Chloe sighed. Stupid freaking former married name. She _hated_ that she’d had to keep it for her career as an author, especially after how terribly Palmetto had ended up. However, her agent and the publishing company had vehemently vetoed her writing as “Chloe Decker” or even “C. Decker.” She was building a brand that was family friendly enough, despite writing about the original fallen angel, and clever teenagers plus Google searches would tie any version of her actual, legal name to _that stupid movie_.

“Miss Espinoza, may I come in to speak with you? My name is Lucifer Morningstar. I own a night club in Los Angeles called _Lux_. I…if you need to check my bona fides out before opening the door, that seems understandable. I did show up with precious little notice.”

“You mean no notice,” Chloe corrected.

“Yes, well, my sister brought your book to my attention today, and I…frankly…I have some notes for you.”

Chloe adjusted the sunglasses on her nose and wanted to laugh. This guy had to be fake, right? She’d even circled the name “Morningstar” as a surname for Lukas before settling on “Le Bail” instead.

Her former and very much diminished cop instincts flared back up, and taking a few steps back from the door, she ran her hands over her kitchen island until she found her cell. Cueing up Siri, she asked it to tell her anything it could about an L.A. club called _Lux._ The phone rattled off a few facts before mentioning as a bizarre footnote that the owner---actually one Lucifer Morningstar, must have been a stage name---sometimes consulted for the LAPD after successfully helping bring insight into the Delilah murder case that was crucial enough to lead to the arrest of the correct killer.

Oh, right. _That_ guy.

Dan grumbled about him sometimes when he and she traded Trixie off every other weekend. What the hell was a club owner-come-consultant doing here in San Diego, desperate to offer her eye-to-eye criticism of her book, so to speak?  
  


However, Dan had always complained that Morningstar was a walking HR lawsuit waiting to happen and an idiot-savant with too much libido and disregard for procedure for the department’s own good. To be fair, her ex had never mentioned that the club owner might be dangerous.

Fine, she’d humor him. It might take her mind off her crippling writer’s block.

Sighing, she slipped her phone into her jeans’ pocket, and returned to the door, undoing the dead bolt. She listened closely, waiting for the usual tell-tale intake of breath or the slight step back that came when people met her for the first time. Morningstar did neither. Instead, he let out a put upon and overly theatrical sigh and strode around her, the breeze from his steps ruffling her hair a bit.

“Took you long enough, darling.”

Ah, now she could see…well, _understand_ what Dan had been talking about. No shame in this one, was there?

Chloe turned and settled down in her favorite armchair in her apartment’s living room. “Well, Mr. Morningstar, you weren’t wrong. Your story checked out with a quick internet search.” She leaned back and drummed her fingers on one of the arms. “Also, small world. I used to work for the LAPD too. Dan’s my ex.”

“Oh, the Douche. I’m truly sorry then, Miss Espinoza. He clearly leaves a lot to be desired,” he said, his voice dropping to a lower register that did things to her belly and _other places_.

“Decker,” she corrected. “I’m very happily divorced. For my pen name it’s Espinoza. ‘Chloe Decker’ was a brand with a lot of history, you know?”

There was the ruffle of fabric against her sofa, and she assumed Lucifer had changed positions. When he spoke, his voice seemed closer. “ _That_ Chloe Decker! Well, as I live and breathe, I never thought I’d meet Hollywood royalty. Your work is---”

“Stop right there or the talk’s over, Morningstar. First, Mom is more like B-movie hell infamous and not famous.”

“Have to disagree with you, Miss Decker. The Vampire Queen is legendary, some of the finest 80s horror one can find. But you, you were quite fetching in _Hot Tub High School_. In fact---”

“So do not need to hear it. You wouldn’t be the first.” She sighed and gestured to her face, obscured as it was by the dark glasses she only took off for sleeping purposes since Palmetto Street, since Malcolm had blinded her. “I’m pretty sure I know all you would have said, and we can skip it. Thanks though. Now you get why I go by ‘C. J. Espinoza’ for my work.”  
  


“Yes, quite. I suppose _Hot Tub High School_ isn’t YA friendly, although technically that was a teenage film so…”

“I prefer _not_ to still be associated with it.”

“But you were better than Phoebe Cates!”

“Mr. Morningstar,” she said, her voice taking on a hard edge. “I let you in because, honestly, I’ve been bored all day and my muse is pretty dead, plus I know enough about you via Dan’s, well, complaints to know you’re harmless. That doesn’t mean I want to talk about that dumbass movie. Ever.”

He sighed again, and there was a rustle of fabric as he readjusted himself on the sofa. “Well, more’s the pity, but I can respect fair terms. I’ll discuss your so-called novel only, and neither of us will mention that marvelous piece of cinema you made again. Devil’s honor.”

She frowned. Oh, so the whole persona Dan complained about really was an act Morningstar took seriously. “Excuse me?”

“Well, Miss Decker---”

“Chloe’s fine, really.”

“Yes, well, Chloe, then. My sister, the Angel of Death for the record---”

“Sure, of course.” Maybe she didn’t regret leaving the LAPD permanently if this was who they were reduced to hiring as consultants. He was a few tacos short of a combination platter, that was for sure. “So, the Angel of Death recommended my book to you?”

“Yes, Azrael found it amusing. I did _not_.” He snorted a bit, then huffed again. For “the Devil,” Lucifer sure did sigh a lot. “I would _never_ go to high school. I certainly would never seduce a child. What use would I have for a sixteen-year-old girl when I have many adoring and very much _grown_ lovers of all types in my life?” He stopped rambling for a minute before adding the afterthought. “Alright, if I were stuck in a child prison, I do admit that I would take theater classes. I’m a rather brilliant performer. You should hear me croon at _Lux_.”

“I wouldn’t know much about that,” she admitted.

Lucifer chuckled and it was a low, throaty rumble that reminded Chloe that since Palmetto, she’d basically been a hermit-slash-single mom extraordinaire. She crossed her legs and hoped Lucifer didn’t notice.

“Hmm,” he mused, and she wasn’t sure how to read that tone in his voice. “Right then, well, Chloe, I had heard there’s to be a film of this bollocks, and that is untenable. I’ve a brand and image of my own to maintain, and teenage nitwit is _not_ part of it.”

She laughed, a deep one that resonated up from her belly. Oh, wait. She got it. This was some weird practical joke that Dan and Trixie had to have planned out together. Maybe it was a sly way from both her ex and her daughter to remind her that just because Warner Bros. wanted her work, didn’t mean she still shouldn’t stay humble.

“Oh, you really had me. I can’t believe Dan got you to come all the way here.”

“I beg your pardon!”

“This,” she said, gesturing between them. “it’s a practical joke from my family, obviously. I get it. I’m not that special cause of the movie thing, and honestly, since I have awful writer’s block on the sequel, I didn’t need the help reminding me I wasn’t ‘all that.’” She laughed again. “Okay, but when you talk to Dan next, let him know it was a clever joke. I get it. I bet Trixie thought this up on her own and roped her dad into it.”

Lucifer made a strangled noise she hadn’t heard before anywhere. “You’ve got spawn?”

_Seriously, who the heck was this guy?_

“Yeah, our kid’s a senior in high school herself. We share custody for her. This is something she’d mastermind. Besides, she’s always my first set of editing eyes, my authentic slice of high school life circa 2025. I just…you’re very committed to the whole role.”

He sighed again. She should start keeping count on that. “Chloe, I never lie, and I _am_ the Devil. It’s not my fault if most mortals, including the Douche, refuse to believe that. I also have not been put up to this. I genuinely want to address the errors you’ve written about me.”

She stilled then, not afraid, but a bit sad for his sake. It was one thing to have a persona---she knew L.A. well even now, who didn’t have one---it was another to be delusional. This poor man clearly wasn’t dangerous and had some innate skills or her former precinct wouldn’t keep him around, especially with how much Dan complained about him to the C.O. However, Lucifer wasn’t well.

At all.

“Morningstar, look, I did the research for the book---”

“Oh, I _highly_ doubt that.”

“…but I’m a lifelong atheist. I hate to tell you this, and I’m sure I’m not the first person to say it, but God and the Devil are not real.”

He snorted again and stood. She heard the scuffle of shoes on her wooden floor as he paced back and forth, his steps surprisingly light-footed. “You mortals, you never believe me in the bloody slightest. I am the Devil.” He stopped. “Do you require proof?”

“Um, yeah, because it’s insane. Also, why do you even care what _I_ write? I mean, you should take stuff up with the Bible first.”

“Fat lot of good harassing Dad about his propaganda has ever done me.”

_Right…_

“Alright but if you’re the Devil, then you’re immortal so did you ever harass Dante or Milton or the guy who wrote Faust?”

“Marlowe and I had a chat, yes. Then, my tongue found better things to do,” he replied, chuckling a bit.

“Um, too much information.” She sighed and rubbed at her temples. Chloe could feel a headache coming on. “Morningstar, look, I’m sure ‘being the Devil’ feels real for you.”  
  


“Because it is.”

“Okay but have you considered professional help?”

“Oh, of course I have. Helped me get over my grief after losing my employee and friend Delilah years ago. Dr. Linda is quite lovely and helpful. Even married my brother.”

She quirked her head at him. Chloe had to have misheard. “Angels get married?”

“Amenadiel did. He’s not around in heaven much anymore. Rather busy being a better father admittedly than our own. However, I don’t need a psychiatrist. Already got one I pay handsomely. I am _not_ mad either. I am the Devil, the Prince of Lies and Prince of Darkness, the Adversary…”

“Beelzebub, Satan, Old Scratch…yeah, no matter how much you hate my book and rude much…I did do my research. But you’re _not_ real.”

“Well, how am I going to help prevent you from besmirching my name, if you don’t bloody believe me?”

“Can you prove it?”

He sighed and flopped back onto the couch. She winced a little at the thud and hoped he didn’t pop the leather’s seams. “I cut off my wings, so they are, of course, no longer proof. Usually, I can elicit the deepest desire from anyone I speak with. However, and forgive me for admitting this, but that ability falters if one cannot hold eye contact with me.”

“What?”

He rustled around a bit, probably fidgeting with something. When he spoke, it felt like his voice was right in her ear, and she could smell the slightly spicy scent (cinnamon?) of his cologne. He must have leaned in close to reply. “It is a fact. Chloe, again I do not mean to be uncouth, these are the rules Father set. They are not my own. However, as eyes are the windows to the soul, well, to elicit desire, I need to get a glimpse into a mortal’s eyes. I may be assuming, but I suspect you’re blind. Am I wrong?”

She swallowed, and her felt throat like it was coated in ash. “I…no. You’re not.”  
  


“Then, I cannot elicit a desire from you. It’s flatly impossible.”

He didn’t lean back, and the cinnamon spice was beginning to burn her nose. His delusions had gone from being funny to sad to now making her feel shitty. Where did he get off on any of this?

“I think you should go. I won’t tell Dan that you somehow tracked down my address even if that shouldn’t be possible as it is _not_ public knowledge.” A particularly vicious Twitter troll early on after _Midnight Sins_ released had made that a necessity. “And you go back to L.A. now and your life. That was mean.”

“It was true, and I never lie, Chloe.” he let out a sharp breath, and she could hear the leather squeak a bit as he slid even closer to her. “I have one thing I could do to prove my point, but it would, perhaps, be unpleasant albeit true.”

She was over this. Trixie would be home any minute, and she had grown tired of this whack job who had wasted her already limited time. “Just leave, Lucifer!”

“You said that you were blocked on your series, did you not?”

“True,” she admitted, trying to keep her voice from cracking. “So what?”

“I’ve helped many writers before. Will and Oscar come to mind, but Mary Shelley was rather lovely. Oh, and Neruda, that man really was pure poetry in every sense of the word.”

“Oh, you’re a muse too?” she said, her tone clipped.

“No, I’m strictly just the Devil, but I do love writers. I’ve even helped punch up _Hamlet_. Would I be wrong to surmise as well that to keep your movie contract you have to finish the rest of your series or, at least, present the studio with a trilogy idea for Devil films that will sell?”

“I… yeah…” the advance was really nice. It was the first time in a decade she hadn’t been making ends meet on pension and injury pay from the LAPD only, no small feat in Southern California and with its sky-high prices for everything.

“Then, what do you have to lose?”

“A lot. You come here, stalk me---”

“That is a lie. I called your agent. She was more than happy to tell me where you lived.”

“What?”

The ruffle of fabric, and she wondered if he were shrugging. “It was via face time. Her desires I could elicit.”

“Wow, you do love rubbing the blindness in, don’t you?”

Lucifer sighed. “Father gave the powers as He saw fit, same way He does with bloody everything else. Amenadiel stops time because _Dad_ said so. Azrael is a psychopomp and can travel easily to the land of the dead because _Father_ wills it. I elicit desire with a glance. It is how it has always been long before the Garden of Eden. I don’t make the rules, Chloe, and I did not mean to throw anything in your face.”

“But you did, and I might be on deadline, but I don’t think working with a nutcase who thinks he’s Satan is going to get my books done faster.”

Strong and surprisingly large hands wrapped around her own. “Chloe, let me show you.”

“I can’t---”

“I just need you to _feel_ it, alright? I…I would never show this to an innocent mortal, but I don’t think this will adversely affect you. The real horror,” he trailed off then, and didn’t speak for a long time. “I…think it’s so heinous only for those who see it. Just please humor me. If you still throw me out, I will understand, but I think I can help you. I think we can help each other. I’d like a better film about me, and you’d like to finish your series or, more accurately, amend what books and films you’ll be creating, Devil-centric as they’ll still be. Please?”

It was the oddly quiet and plaintive note in his voice that broke her resolve. He sounded so utterly genuine and vulnerable, and she could feel in her gut---that long atrophied cop instinct---that he rarely allowed himself to be that with others.

“Alright, Lucifer, but if this is a trick---”

“I assure you; it is not.” He hummed a little to himself. “Would that this weren’t true, but _Father_ gave me something else in His infinite so-called wisdom and wrath.”

For a moment there was a sound, and she definitely couldn’t place it. It sounded _wrong_ , like something being stretched, but she didn’t know what. All she did know what the sound felt visceral, alerted something in her hindbrain that made Chloe hold her breath.

Lucifer dropped his hands from hers, and when he spoke, his voice was so quiet, she figured anyone else might not have heard him. But in the intervening years, her sense of hearing had grown acute. “Again, Miss Decker, I assure you this is not a trick or a game or an illusion. You have permission to touch my face.”

She stilled. “I don’t understand.”

He sighed, and his voice was a bit wobbly when he whispered the last part. “But you will, I’m afraid.”

Her curiosity---she’d been a detective after all---overruled her confusion at Lucifer Morningstar’s antics, and Chloe did as she was asked. She expected to feel nothing out of the ordinary, but the second her hands touched his cheeks she froze.

The skin was _wrong_.

She yanked her hands back, and Lucifer took in a sharp breath of his own. “Perhaps I should have prepared you better. It can be most unpleasant.” There was the sound of fabric sliding over leather, and he must have stood because the scent of cinnamon was gone.

“No,” she said, trying to be as gentle with her words as possible. “I mean, you’re _not_ wrong. I wasn’t expecting it, but it’s not…I was afraid I was hurting you. _How_ could that not hurt?”

Lucifer sighed again, but she noticed the rustling of fabric and the return of cinnamon in her nose. “Because the burns were suffered eons ago when I Fell and when the Lake of Fire spent millennia eating through even an archangel’s skin.” He took her left hand with one of his. “They no longer ache; they just are, Chloe.”

“I…” she forced herself not to whimper.

She didn’t want to show any distress around him if she could help it. It always hurt when people _noticed_ with her, made her feel differently. Chloe would hardly want that for Lucifer either. She hadn’t known. He’d sounded so utterly normal. Hell, Dan had never mentioned this about Lucifer either. That _did_ surprise her. Dan could be petty when he wanted to be; it played no small part in the dissolution of their marriage.

Surely, her ex would have dug in more about Lucifer’s unfortunate burns by now, wouldn’t he?

Lucifer’s hand shook just a bit as it covered her own, and she wondered if he’d realized it. “Apologies, Chloe. This was a terrible idea. You don’t believe me, and I’ve traumatized you because of course when hasn’t my true face scared a human? I just thought things would be different if you didn’t have to see it.”

She shook her head and placed her right palm over his cheek. Now that she was ready for it, well, it was still _awful_ to feel, but only because she was worried that, despite his protests, he was a liar. How could this _not_ hurt? Chloe continued to stroke his face with her free hand, to feel the ridges in his skin, the deep furrows where the skin was ravaged and waxy-slick from old burns. Her hand crept even higher, past his forehead and to where hair should have been. It was nothing more than continued patches of a crisp and ruined scalp.

“Your _Father_ did this to you?”

“Yes,” he said.

She moved her hand to one scarred temple and brought up her other to mirror its position on the other side of his face. “Why didn’t you press charges? Were you a child when he did this? I mean, did no one call CPS?”

Lucifer chuckled, and it was small, broken noise. “Would that I could have. Father is all-powerful. That’s how _God_ works.”

Right, and it made so much more sense now. It even made a small bit of sense why his psychiatrist obviously humored the metaphors he was using about his life. Thinking of himself as the Devil and assuming the persona wasn’t about theater or sexual attention or anything else that she’d have guessed from what she knew about his nightclub and Dan’s gossip. No. These stories were the only way Lucifer could weather not only his scars but the clearly devastating knowledge that whoever his father was, the man was rich and powerful enough to be untouchable. That there would apparently never be any justice for what had happened… _no been done to_ …Lucifer.

“I’m sorry.”

He touched her right hand and brought it to his lips. They were craggy and uneven, burned and scabbed over even now. But he smiled. Somehow, despite all of this, he smiled for her; she could feel the outline of it against her palm. Then, he moved her hand aside to his left cheek.

“Don’t be. Father’s a right bastard. It has been true since the beginning of time. But, Chloe, I _am_ the Devil, and I’d very much like to help you. It’s not altruistic, as I get something from the deal of course. Love to have a _decent_ film series about me, after all. But, to be honest, it has been a long time since I’ve worked closely with any writer. I do miss it. Would you like to try being partners?”

She finally removed both hands, conscious of making him feel too exposed and vulnerable. It must have been nice for a few minutes to be around someone who hadn’t known the difference. God, she’d give a lot for that too some days. Lucifer was deadly serious about helping her, or he never would have offered up something that raw about himself.

Chloe could understand that.

He wasn’t the Devil because the Devil didn’t exist any more than leprechauns or the damned Easter Bunny did. But he was clearly someone who had suffered quite a bit, and who had buried himself so deeply in the metaphors about his own “fall” to cope that he could no longer tell the difference. At least it meant he might even be a bigger expert on Christian lore than she was, might have ideas she hadn’t thought of, and she really needed to hit her deadlines.

The full payments from this series wouldn’t just pay for college, they’d set her daughter up for life.

And yet, none of that was enough reason to agree to the deal. Perhaps it was wrong of her, but for all his bravado at first and for all of Dan’s complaints, Chloe felt sorry for Lucifer. Sorry for his scars and furious at his father for inflicting them on him. If writing with her helped give him something to focus on, helped him deal with his metaphors and the beyond complicated (possibly delusional) thoughts about his dad, then she’d humor him too.

Besides, she really had _no other_ ideas, and time was running out.

  
She stuck out her hand, hoping that she hadn’t made an idiot of herself, and it was somewhere near his own. A warm, large hand enveloped hers. The skin was smooth, had given her no hint of the horrors written into the flesh of his face, and it made her want to find his father that much more and beat him down. God, what kind of so-called parent would do something so cruel and so calculatedly disfiguring to their own child?

The thought of anyone trying to hurt Trixie made Chloe furious. The thought of ever hurting her daughter, let alone to that level, was sickening and unfathomable.

“Chloe? Are you quite alright?” he asked, and his voice was warm and friendly again. Steady too.

She nodded. “You have a deal then, Lucifer. You can help me try and salvage my proposal and the deal with the movie studio, but it’s gonna be a huge uphill climb. I have no idea what to do.”

He chuckled warmly and heat flared in her belly again, and for a moment, she wished desperately they’d met some other way, in a life where neither of them carried such crippling baggage. It might have been nice. _He_ might have been nice in so many ways. “Well, darling, I’ve some ideas on that already.”

She dropped her hand and shook her head at him. “Oh, I just have to hear this, Old Scratch. What would make this better?”

“First, spirit of the contract and not the letter. You’re contracted for a Devil trilogy, not necessarily the same one you started on. Second, you raze it all and start fresh.” Then, and she could tell this was deliberate, Lucifer leaned close to her so that when he spoke, his voice was a low, sensual purr in her ears. “And you make it a real romance between actual adults, Chloe. My reputation between the sheets is fairly earned, and it _will sell_. Besides, I’ve an angle I’ve been mulling over that’s closer to life, perhaps a romance between the Devil-and-sometimes-police-consultant and a strikingly beautiful blonde detective. Thoughts?”

She swallowed hard and stood up. Desperate for anything to do, Chloe made her way to the kitchen and started to put on a kettle for tea. He was British, and they actually did that, right? She’d seen it before in movies and TV. “I…that’s an interesting idea.”

He didn’t even stand up; she’d heard no rustling of motion behind her, but he did laugh. “Believe me, Chloe, I’ve got a best seller in me yet. Besides, won’t it be a sight more fun than bloody high school?”

“Maybe…”

Lucifer chuckled again, and this time it was such a low, sinful sound that her clit throbbed despite all her efforts to stay busy with mundane tasks. “Besides, there has to be some research for the love scenes, doesn’t there? I’ll be quite the muse for that.”

Chloe made a strangled sound in her throat that she hoped sounded less horny to him than it did to her. “Huh? Come again?”

“Operative word, that. Oh darling, I’ve always found that research is the best part of any story.” Rustling finally and the sound of lithe steps on the wood. She could feel him again, his presence and the heat drifting off him as he leaned over the other side of her kitchen island. “Old Will agreed with me. Ms. Jong too, _Fear of Flying_ , you know?”

“Is that a book?”  
  


“Oh, it’s quite the book.” He must have leaned in closer because that purr was in her ears again, and she could almost believe he was the Devil, the way his voice, like smooth velvet, was promising her any sin she could think of in that moment. “We’ll have to go over that one too.”

“I…research?” she asked again, practically squeaking.

“Only if you so desire it and for authenticity of course, love,” he said.

She swallowed hard. “Well, if it helps inspire us---”

“Smashing, then that’s agreed to, if needs must,” he said, patting the back of her hand.

Chloe nodded and then continued making the tea, letting him rant about the things he’d vehemently hated about his fictional high school counterpart before he segued into some of his own so-called “real” Hellish adventures. And while her hands went through the motions, her mind was somewhere else, giddy at the thought of the _research_ involved.

  
And maybe, just a little, hoping that Lucifer Morningstar might take her flying too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've enjoyed these six little elseworlds very much. I have the goal to get some of my WIPs trimmed down and off my plate over the summer (dream the impossible dream), but I will definitely be revisiting _Falling Star_ and _My Little Monkey_ with short story follow ups.
> 
> As for _In Nomine Patris_ and _Fine Print_ , I hope to sequel those with longer works come late August/into the fall.
> 
> Fingers crossed!!!
> 
> Also thanks to the crew at FH for such kind comments and support :)

**Author's Note:**

> The fic will be posted on Mondays/Fridays till all 5+1 sections are up.


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